


The Game, and Those Who Play

by ArcFour



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Titles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-04
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 107
Words: 78,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcFour/pseuds/ArcFour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some play the Game. Others are played by it. And across paradox-space, limitless iterations of countless people attempt to achieve their Destinies. Some do.</p><p>Some do not.</p><p>You have been Chosen. Will you play, or be played?</p><p>The Game goes ever on, either way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preface

Across infinite realities, and endless eternity, the great Game is played. It is the progenitor of universes, destroyer of civilizations, both benevolent and malignant in its glory. And you have been chosen to Play.

You are one of an infinite, eternal web of Players, of friends and enemies, of loves and rivals, of alternate selves and replacement roles, countless, yet always unique.

You have been granted a Title, and with it you have been granted a Destiny. Whether or not you can achieve it, however, depends on both the whimsies of Luck and the rulings of Fate.

And both are under the purview of the grand Game in which you play.

You are one of many, and you have been Chosen. And you have been given the tools to your success, and the path to your defeat.

Will you play, or be played?

The Game goes on, either way.

 

 

 

 

And now, Fanarts!

 

First is Amalgam's fanart of the Bard of Time!

 

 

Second is [ArcNine's](http://arcnine.tumblr.com/) fanart of the Thief of Time!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These stories were made possible by a whole network of people. Special thanks goes to Dermonster for the account, SilverKunama and shieldman for all their assistance in plotting these, and the MSPA Fanfiction thread for all of their feedback.
> 
> Speaking of which, feedback is both welcome and VERY appreciated.


	2. The Bard of Time

You are the Bard of Time, and you follow the Rhythm.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Sound and the Silence, the Ebb and the Flow, the great Notes that govern all. And you know how to play it.

Here the tune sways, and you take it in your hands and in your strings and in your breath and you make it sway more. Sweet sound flows from your lips, and the Rhythm bends to you.

Time slows down. Time speeds up. Enemies find themselves caught in a mire, unable to think, unable to move, too slow to make any difference. Allies find themselves on fast forward, thinking like lightning and moving like light.

And you. You stride into battle with the tune on your lips, and you are like a storm, like a wave. You move, and you become a requiem for the dead, a dirge for those who dared to face you. Enemies fall, in the blink of an eye, and before anyone, friend or foe, can react, a whole symphony has played. You are fast. You are strong. You are an Elegy for those who align themselves against you.

But your power is limited.

You have tried. God have you tried. But the Rhythm can only be bent and pushed. To jump, forward or back, is to break the Rhythm permanently, and you can't bring yourself to do that. For now, it can only be bent. That is simply the way it is.

And then you face the Black Queen. Your teammates are at your side, and as you see the clock set into her chest, the product of a foolish choice by a well-meaning teammate, you realize that the Black Queen can feel the Rhythm as well.

The Black Queen will be unstoppable. You know this. So you make a choice.

Before, you felt a weakness in the Rhythm. You resisted taking advantage of it, because you could feel that to use it was to break it. But now, here, at this time and this place, you realize that it will be necessary. The Rhythm must be broken. The Beat must come to an end.

So, as the Queen comes for you, and everything slows to a crawl, you pull up your strings and your voice and your blade and you play one last song.

The Rhythm skips a Beat, and breaks.

And everything becomes a little…

disCORdaNT.

 

 

 

Author's Note: Here is a fanart, done by Amalgam on the MSPA forums. I hope to see more!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these Titles may be edited from their original form (that is, the way they were posted at on the MSPA forum). This isn't one of them, but I'll mark the ones that have been as I post them.
> 
> Also, I have about 44 of these to post, total; I'll be doing it a few a day until I'm caught up.


	3. The Mage of Time

You are the Mage of Time, and you hold the Source.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Font and the Well, the Spring and the Power, the Origin of all that is. And you know how to tap into it.

Before the Game, you were powerless. Weak. But then the Game began, and that all changed.

An enemy approaches, and you smile as you reach out. He gets close, empty grin upon his face, and dies, as the Power reaches him in a wave of red light. All that’s left is dust. Aged to a dead, empty shell, the body falls and crumbles, and you feel a surge of elation.

Yours is the power of Time, the power to bring about its ravages to those of the Enemy. All fear you, Ally and Enemy, because Time knows no bounds, knows no fealty, and cannot understand the difference between your friends and your foes.  
And as time goes on, well, it becomes difficult for you to tell, either.

Time is a Source, Time is Power, and everything that faces you will fall to the dust of ages.

Even those you love.

It was an accident, but that doesn't ease the pain. She got in your way, and was struck by a Power that you did not mean to turn against her.

And as you stand in the ashes of one who did not deserve to die, you know there is one thing you can do. While all others before you have turned to dust in its power, you think that you could survive the ravages of the Source long enough to go back, to do what is necessary, to keep this from happening. The flow of Time might be changed.

But you cannot be certain, because in the long days of Sburb, you have learned the true nature of the Mage.

You could go back. But how far? How far would the massive Wellspring of Time take you? Because you know that you would not be able to guide yourself, just like you could not control the flow of power that took the life of an innocent.

Because you know that the Mage’s curse is to have Power without Control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has a few newer sentences; I was never quite happy about it's length. So now it's a little bit longer!


	4. The Thief of Time

You are the Thief of Time, and you know the Prize.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Reward, the Gift, the most valuable thing in all of paradox space. And you know how to take it.

Everyone’s time is limited. They’re born, they live, and they die; that’s the way the world works. That is the way it is.

Except for you, that is.

Everyone’s time is limited, and valuable, and _yours for the taking_. Days, weeks, months; you take them from those who would face you, and you watch as they begin to crumble, begin to bow, and begin to bend under the weight of their end days. Creatures in the prime of their lives are suddenly left old and withered, brought to their twilight years by your own hand.

And you? Well, those stolen hours have to go somewhere, don’t they? You take them away, and keep them for yourself, and you can feel them nestled in you, warm and glowing. You know that you need never die, need never even _age_ as long as there are fools out there with years yet to give.

But it isn’t enough. Not yet.

As imps and ogres and basilisks crumble and wither and die under your grasp, you realize just how pitifully _short_ their lives are. Their bounty is miniscule. Their treasure is pathetic. Their Prize is unworthy.

So you set your sights higher. And you see _her_.

The Black Queen, you’ve learned, is _old_. But still she is as young as she supposedly was a very long time ago. You’ve learned what you could of the carapace people, and they live long. Their bounties were far more plentiful. But the Black Queen’s Prize would be… _invaluable_.

So you face her, early, and you have her at your grasp, and you _take_.

It is then that you learn the truth. The carapace people are long lived.

But the Black Queen is _ageless_.

And even though you take more and more and more, she has an infinite well of years inside of her, an eternity that cannot be brought to an end. You take and take and take, and she only smiles, and stands up.

It is here that you learn a truth.

There are Prizes too large for even the most skilled Thief to take.

 

 

 

 

Fanart, by [ArcNine](http://arcnine.tumblr.com/)!


	5. The Rogue of Time

You are the Rogue of Time, and you make the Ways.

You know Time’s true nature; it is a Map and a Contract, a Guide and a Rulebook, a set of Instructions to be followed. And you know how to disregard it.

Following the set path is for the weak and the unintuitive. It’s in the wild ways that you find adventure and excitement. Reading a map? Following directions? BORING.

No. You’ll make your own way, Sburb be damned.

And it’s here that you excel. Here, a teammate dies unnecessarily. Time points you _here_ , but that makes things too simple, so instead you go HERE. And it cuts it close, to be sure; the ally barely makes it through, but you succeeded, didn’t you?

And so you play, from close scrape to rocks and hard places, from pans to fires, and you’re laughing the whole way, because you know that the same closeness that is making everything so exciting for you is making it for exciting for your friends, too.

  
With every encounter they come out a little stronger, and with every fight you know they’ve all learned, not just you.

With every jump, you set your own Way, not Time’s Path, and you know in your heart you are doing good. Your whole team is stronger through your effort, whether they know it or not, and you don’t even feel the need to tell them. That’s just how you are.

So, when everything goes horribly wrong, when everything falls, and your team lies dead at your feet, Time confronts you with a single Path. A path that leaves you all in dire straits, but all alive. But you see another path, one farther away, tucked out of sight, which brings not only life, but true success to your team.

But it leads to your death.

And you grin, even with the carnage around you, because you’ve already made a choice. The Rogue takes the most interesting path, despite the end.

And you’ve always been willing to risk everything for your friends.

And days earlier in the timeline, but hours after that fateful choice, you realize something wonderful.

Death is not the end.

Sometimes, all it takes to Rise Up is being willing to make your own Path.


	6. The Sylph of Time

You are the Sylph of Time, and you feel the Flow.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Sky and the Sea, the Wind and the Water, the great Current that guided all things natural. And you know how to thrive in it.

There is a Balance to Paradox Space, despite first appearances, just as there was to your home, but here, as the Sylph, you can really _feel_ it. There’s an ebb and flow to it all, a current, and it doesn’t take you long to realize that it’s all to the beat of Time. Time is the Keeper, the Pendulum to which it all sways.

And in realizing that, you feel wonderful. Here there’s a meaning to it all that you lacked before. Here, the Enemy is clearly in the Wrong, and your Team is Right. Here, every time you kill an enemy you feel the Flow shift back into alignment, and everything feels better.

But it all goes wrong, very, very quickly.  
   
The first time you alchemize your first Time tool, a simple flute, it feels odd in your hands. You’ve played the flute all of your life, but this one feels different.

When you put it to your lips and play it, your body _twists_ in searing pain as you are hurled back in time several hours. Hot and cold, ice and fire, grips your mind and soul, and you realize that your power is _wrong_.

You don’t play it much after that.

And as you continue through the game, only sparingly touching your flute as necessary, you begin to wonder if you, too, are wrong; if you are as much a parasite, a curse on the game as your flute?

You begin to wonder if you need to die.

You make a decision soon after. The team gets together, and your leader makes a hard announcement. To continue, one of your team will have to stay behind and hold off the enemy. Someone needs to hold the line.

They wonder why you offer yourself so readily, but you tell them a simple lie. It is your Planet, after all; you know it better than they do. They accept it, however, suspiciously, and you’re happy.

The enemy comes, and a dozen, a hundred, a thousand of you are here to face it. Each of you burns with the fires of _wrongness_ , of _imbalance_ , but you fight anyway.

And when it’s all over, and only you are left, mortally wounded, you find yourself in a bed, a wonderful, beautiful bed, and everything feels right.

When you Ascend, you are faced with a Truth.

To be a Sylph is to be of your power, but also apart from it; never to use it, except at great cost.

Unless, of course, you make the greatest sacrifice.

And now you flit through the Flow, and it sings through you, and you realize that now, now everything truly is right.


	7. The Page of Time

  
You are the Page of Time, and you learn the Lessons.

You know Time’s true nature; it is a power to be Learned, it is knowledge to be Gained, it is a great Gift that can be used as a tool and weapon only by those who have become Experienced.

So you learn.

You are the Page, and that means that you are weak, for you are only a student where others are already masters. Your friends and your enemies have their power already, and they never had to work for it.

But you do.

So you follow them. You help where you can, though your skills are meager (and become more so as your friends grow even greater in power). You fight. You support.  
You learn.

Some of your teammates don’t appreciate you. They think you’re useless. You agree with them, for now.

But the only way it will change is if you learn to play the Game for what it is.

You become knowledgeable about the Game. You figure out the rules. You figure out the mechanics. You figure out secrets. And you do it all by paying attention.

And then you learn it; the greatest Lesson of them all.

The Page’s destiny is to be weak, because he must _earn_ his power where others are given it freely. His destiny is to be weak until he has _learned_.

And as you stand on a strange Pedestal engraved with the mark of a Gear, the mark you have come to recognize as your own, you have learned exactly what it will take.

When a very familiar figure stands in front of you, almost like a mirror, garbed in the strange red clothing and hood of What Comes Next, the both of you smile, because you understand.

The death is quick.

And you Rise.

And you understand, as you prepare to go back and slay yourself, that this is the fate of the Page. To be weak, to be frail, to be useless; these are the qualities that the Page must turn into a strength. Because now? Now you have Power to rival the Mage, Control to rival the Witch, and Understanding to rival the Seer, and most of all, you have Experience, because you know what it is to be weak.

The Fate of the Page is to earn that which the Heir is given by right, so that he may wield it with Experience. And so you will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's strange; I really expected to have to do a lot of rewriting on these earliest Titles; after all, I've done nearly 48 of them, surely the first few were rusty? But for the most part, I've only had to do a couple of minor changes. There's a couple of upcoming ones I may well rewrite completely, though. *glares at Knight of Mind, the cad*


	8. The Maid of Time

You are the Maid of Time, and you are bound in the Chains.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Law and the Bindings, the Fetters that enslave all under its tyrannical whim. And you have no choice but to follow it.

Time has a Path. This Path must be followed by all. But most of the time, they follow this path unknowingly, blissfully naive of the engraved-stone Fate they all have.

Your naivete was stolen from you in a vicious cycle of revenge.

And now, dead, you can see the Path, in all of its terrible, binding majesty.

So you follow it. You don’t have a choice. You don’t even care, anymore. The Maid’s fate is to serve, and you serve as bidden.

Here a teammate dies at the hand of another, and the Session is Doomed. You go back, and say the words needed to change it.

Here a teammate dies of her own foolishness and arrogance, taking on an enemy larger than herself. You go back, and stay her hand.

Here the Black King fights, and all die in the sound of his terrible Voice. You go back, a hundred thousand times, and die in their place.

You die, and die, and die a thousand, thousand times as you guide according to the immovable rulings of Time.

But it is only after the end, when all seems doomed, that you see a glimmer in the darkness.

It is only after the end that you are given a Chance.

And, in an uncharacteristic action of choice, you take it.

And you Rise Up.

And now you know the truth of the Maid, of all Maids. They are to serve, and serve unflinchingly, unless they have the courage to take their freedom by force.

You are the Maid. And now you are alive.

N0w y0u are free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, this is Aradia! Basically, in addition to creating a unique character for each of the 'non-canon' titles (all 132 of them), I will also write the canon ones, as well! Some of them are difficult, because their 'plot', as it is, isn't finished yet. But Aradia's was perfect for me to write. Also, I changed a couple of minor things on the last two lines.


	9. The Prince of Time

You are the Prince of Time, and you are trapped in the Role.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Promise, never fulfilled. It is the Goal, never to be reached. It is Power that can never be yours.

And you finally understand.

It isn’t that you don’t have power, no. You have the power to jump through Time’s streams, to right what goes wrong, to keep everything stable and right. You have the ability to slow and to hasten, to break and to fix, to play Time like a tune. You have all of this. 

But you know you could have more.

Every time you grasp your power, it is never quite enough. Time slows, but not quite enough. Your allies are faster, but you know it isn’t quite enough. You jump to where you are needed, but you don’t quite have enough control; you are only ever barely able to do what you need to do.

Not quite enough control, not quite enough power, not quite enough understanding; you want more, and you know that your Role is keeping it from you.

This can’t be all that Time has to offer.

This can’t be all that the Hero of Time is able to do.

Which means that Sburb is keeping it from you.

And as you watch her fly, wearing the strange purple garb of a Goddess, you wonder if this is the way to take the power that Sburb will not give you. As you watch her, you wonder if maybe you can have power like hers.

So you set it up, and it is perfect. Here you are, sleeping on your Quest Bed. Here you are, standing beside it. Here you are, holding a gun to another version of yourself. A quick pull of the trigger, and the pistol will do all the work for you, and you’ll have the power that you’ve been dreaming of.

And you can’t do it.

Nothing holds you back. Not her, not Sburb, not Time.

Just you.

You walk away, and you wonder if this is the fate of the Prince, to accept his fate, or to die.

You have learned a Truth. Ultimate power was not meant to be yours.

The Prince will never be King.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A minor change in here; originally, the 'her' in the story is explicitly referred to as the Heir of Hope. When I started these, I was only doing Time, but after I finished I decided to do all of them. When I did, I realized that the actual Heir of Hope's short was going to be completely unrelated to the Heir of Hope mentioned here. So I removed the reference to her title.


	10. The Witch of Time

You are the Witch of Time, and you know the Rituals.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Will and the Word, the Point and the Line, the great Pattern that directs everything. And you know how to control it.

Control is an intoxicating thing, as it turns out. You’ve always had an interest in the supernatural, but to find that your interest is giving you a HELL of a leg up in your Game? That’s a pretty damn good ego boost.

It’s almost ridiculously easy; simple patterns drawn in the air cause easily discernable reactions. A slash and a swirl here, and an imp is slowed and stopped, frozen in midair. A point and circular motion there, and your Knight moves like the wind, blurring on fast-forward.

And when you need to pull out the big guns, well, all you have to do is wave your arms, and there are a dozen of you there, time clones and loops all ready to fight.  
Yes, control is very intoxicating.

Of course, it all had to go very, very wrong.

As it turned out, the Black Queen had this control as well. You could have countered her, you suppose; cancel out her Time abilities and let your friends do the rest.

But she had other powers as well, granted by right and by birth and by Sburb, and when she raised her hand, and red light flashed and broke in front of you, you felt the Pattern fall away.

Time was still there, of course. Time had to be there. Time didn’t just go away. But the Rituals to make it work, the Patterns that you depended on to work your magic? They were gone, as if they’d never existed.

And as she came to strike you down, all you could do was stare, as you finally realized where you had gone wrong.

You knew the Patterns, but Time? Time you knew nothing of. Not one damned thing. When the Pattern was gone, you knew nothing of how to continue. You were simply blindly using a tool whose workings were like a black box.

And you laugh, as she comes for you, because you learn a Truth.

The Witch’s curse is to have Control, without Understanding.


	11. The Knight of Time

You are the Knight of Time, and you have the Skill.

You know the true nature of Time; it’s the Blade and the Shield, the Armor and Weapon that keeps you going, keeps you fighting, even when the going gets tough. And you know how to fight.

It’s been hammered into you since day fucking one, after all.

Years of training, years of heat and blades and pain, years of bruises and sprains and cuts all lead to this in the end. The world’s ending, and you’ll be damned if you’re going to let your friends end with it.

That just wouldn’t be cool at all, after all.

So you fight, and damn it all, you’re _good_. Your Bro made sure of that, throughout your whole life, and Sburb and your Title only gave you the icing on the fucking cake, the delicious sugary outside that meant nothing without the sweet cakey inside sitting there all tasty and shit.

So perhaps your metaphors have weakened somewhat in the hours, the days, the however-the-hell-long-it’s-been-so-far, but your skills sure haven’t.

Time is a Tool, Time is a Weapon, and Time is going to be what gets you all through this game. So you use it, just like you’ve been taught (because it’s all you have left of him).

You weave through timeloops, circles and rings and lines weaving together into the chainmail that will protect your friends. You tear through time like a blade, and whenever you need it there are dozens of you all ready to fight and die. Time is a Sword, and you wield it. Your Skill combined with your Power makes you strong, and your Faith (in yourself, in your friends, in the Brother you never got to say goodbye to) keeps you whole.

And you die, a hundred thousand times, thousands of Dead You piling up all over the goddamn place, and as much as it hurts, you know that each of them went to their deaths willingly, because you’ve always known the Truth.

When it comes down to a choice of death (of fiery green and dark eternity), of you or your friend (your sister, your family), it is of no surprise to you that you readily choose yourself (because this is who you are). And when she asks you why, when she asks you how the words came so easily to your lips, your mind rings with the answer you will never be able to tell her.

Because the Truth of the Knight is to die, so that others may live.

And you’ve always known that you were willing to die for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave is a TON of fun to write. That's all there is to say on the matter.


	12. The Seer of Time

You are the Seer of Time, and you know the Plot.

You know the true nature of Time; it was the Story, the Cliché, the Rising Action and the Climax, the Introduction and the Denouement. It was the Log of their lives, and of the lives of all who came before and those who would come after.  
And you know how to See it.

This is your job, of course. You can’t jump through Time’s Scenes yourself, and you cannot directly view them, but you have other uses.

The kind of ability that other Heroes of Time, in other Sessions, might have had is not to be yours, but you have come to peace with that. That isn’t your purpose.

Your purpose is to Divine, to Predict, to Chart the courses for your fellow players to take. But, where other Seers might use the revealing knowledge of Light, or the cavernous understanding of the Mind and its choices, you must use your knowledge of Time.

And you have learned much.

For instance, you’ve learned that Time has a sense of dramatic irony. It was very dramatic in general, actually; your life, and the life of your friends, and your desperate struggle through the Game all follows a sort of formula, a plan, and it didn’t take you long to figure out that it wasn’t a plan, but a cliché. Even your friends all fell into it (and they were created by the Game, so of course it designed them that way); here the Leader, here the Lancer, here the Heart, here the Brute, here the Token Evil Teammate.

And here you are, the Smart Girl.

But it takes you a lot longer to really get the grasp of it. Only at the very end, when you stand in front of the boy (the man?) you came to love, and know he has come to strike you down, do you understand.

The Heir (your Leader, your Love) has gone mad (and a part of you realizes, belatedly, that this too was meant to happen, a further example of simultaneous circumstance that had to come to pass), and it has all become Doomed.

So you turn to the Witch (your Enemy, once, but your only chance, now) and give her a very special item you alchemized, knowing you would never get the chance to use it.

She disappears, sent days back in time against her will, and you know she will be intelligent enough to know what to do when she gets there (because that’s the Cliché, that’s the next step in the Story, and this is not the Climax, just a dark spot in the middle), and you hope (you know) that younger you will get it, in time. You’ll figure it out, days ago, and everyone will be safe.

And you turn to the Madman and smile. He comes for you, eyes like fire and blood turned black, and you hold your arms out to embrace him as death comes.

You don’t try to stop him, and a small part of you whispers the reason why, even as everything fades.

The Seer’s curse is to have Understanding without Power.

You know, though, that the Story will have a happy ending.


	13. The Heir of Time

You are the Heir of Time, and you…

You know what? **_Screw that_**.

 _I_ am the Heir of Time. You are nothing but an interloper, a pitiful observer who can affect nothing.

 _I_ am the Heir, and _I_ know the true nature of Time.

Those others, all of the other Heroes of Time who exist upon the many realities in which we exist, only have a piece of the puzzle.

The Truth is far stranger than that.

Time is a Rhythm and a Flow. Time is the Source and the Prize. Time is the Way and the Role, the Lessons and the Rituals, the Plot and the Chains and the Skill.

Time is all this and more.

I have learned this, and so much more.

And as we play, my friends and me, I know how this will end.

Because I’m not letting us lose.

Nothing stands before me. From the weakest of imps to the mightiest of Denizens, all will fall by my hand. A thousand ways can I end them, and a thousand ways I do. Notes sing and dust flies and gears turn and currents flow and blades cut and I destroy.

Even the mighty King and Queen fall, like locusts to the storm.

They will not get in my way.

We’re going to win, we’re going to live, and we’re going to rule, even if I have to drag my whole team there.

This is the truth I learned when I reached Godhood by my own hands. This is the truth I learned as I have clawed my way through a Game that believed itself beyond me.

Sburb had no idea what it was doing when it gave me this power.

Every one of us is a God, now, even though I had to kill a few of them myself to get them there. When we win, when we create the world we deserve to live in, we will rule it eternally, by right and by might.

Remember this well, interloper.

 

I am the Heir, and I know the Truth of Time’s true nature.

 

 _I am Time_ , eternally living.

 

 _I am Time_ , infinitely powerful.

 

 ** _I am Time_**.

 

And all shall bow before me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few minor word changes here, and a slight reformatting of the end sentences, but no major change. I had this Heir planned from the very beginning; I wanted him to be different from the rest, and I wanted him to be MORE. I think I succeeded, hehe.
> 
> In the end, I decided to always have the Heir of the element be last, and always have it be first person. I've followed this through the Mind, Heart, and Rage elements, and I'll follow that through to the end. Because it's awesome.


	14. The Forger of Sound

You are the Forger of Sound, and you understand the Noise.

It’s interesting, really, how much of the world is made up of Noise. Ambience and white noise calm the mind and soothe the senses, and if removed, put the listener on alert. It’s like when the fridge motor kicks off, or an idling car stops, or the drip in the faucet stops dripping.

You’ve understood the power of Noise for a long time.

Sburb calls you the Forger, but you don’t just have the ability to mimic Noise where there is none; you have the ability to keep people from hearing the Noise that should be there. You can create the ambiance, and you can remove it, at will.

It’s so amazing, what a simple change in background sound can do to a person. An alert person can be lulled to close his eyes for a few seconds, an idle person can be persuaded to look for a sound that isn’t there, and when done right, even the most stable of people can be frightened out of their boots by nothing but Silence.

And when you enter the game, it makes you a terror.

When you’re awake, you play the game like normal, depending on your Lazer Yo-Yo. Alchemizing is awesome. And, mostly, you avoid using your power.

But when you sleep, that’s when the fun begins.

Your dreamself is in Derse, and you know exactly how to create the perfect sort of ambiance to make you completely inconspicuous. Nothing to see here, folks.

You sneak right into the castle, and you begin your reign of terror.

Carapace people find themselves unable to sleep; odd sounds echo in the halls, slight scratched inside what should be solid stone, and an occasional strange wail, cut off at its peak.

In the day, work is interrupted by occasional crashes, moods ruined by strange, nearly undetectable buzzing noises, and already tired carapaces are lulled to sleep when they should be busiest.

Within days, everyone in the castle is useless, and you’re still perfectly undetected. Within a couple of weeks, Derse is in chaos, and you are in control in the shadows.

Your crowning moment, however, has to be the Queen.

You interrupted her sleep the most, and even with her mighty prototypings she was unable to discover it’s source. Most of your manipulations were subtle, and soon the Queen is constantly irritable, and even deadly to be around. But the best moment, by far, would be her last on Derse; irritable, tired, and on edge, she takes a wrong turn and bumps into certain, specific button.

That button had no right to be there, but you had made sure that certain documents were signed by tired, uncaring workers, and certain orders were misheard by distracted builders, and certain plans misread by angry, irritable engineers.

The button itself was connected to a specific machine. A teleporter, to be precise, placed under the feet of the very same Queen who had bumped into the button.

The teleporter led directly into an errant asteroid in the Veil, accidentally sent on its way towards Skaia by a strange combination of events involving wet blueprints, explosives, and one loud bang behind the demolitions expert.

The Queen found herself Exiled from your session due to a hilarious string of mishaps, mistakes, and misdemeanors, all masterminded by you.

It was Glorious.

You are the Forger, and you’re a goddamn master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In addition to doing the 144 combinations of the 'canon' Classes and Elements (all of the ones that the Kids and Trolls have, essentially), I also did some random ones for fun, based on votes and requests. This is one of them.


	15. The Knight of Mind

You are the Knight of Mind. And, as your opponents amass themselves before you, you feel it all start to come together (even as it all falls apart).

Fighting them is like a chess match. To do it right, you have to know the moves available to you and your opponent, but you also have to know your opponent.

You’ve always been good at that.

And with the army before you, you start to see the match play itself out like a chessboard. They make the first move, seeking to swarm you.

You make the countermove, and they die in droves as you predict perfectly (perhaps too perfectly) their every move. Body stance, glances, momentum, emotion, intelligence, cunning; all of these way into the final choice that must be made for every moment of the fight, and you see these choices as easily as you might see the next move in a chess match. An ogre glances to the left, and you sidestep the massive teeth of a basilisk that sought to surprise you. An imp grins, and you duck and riposte its swipe, your staff bludgeoning it to death with a single hit. A hissing rattle behind you, and you quickly move and attack, one-two-three, and enemies fall. Each reaction, each look, each decision, gives you the knowledge you need to take this army on.

They fight, and they fall. You see, and you stand. You are the Knight, and with staff in hand, no enemy can bring you to your knees.

At least, that is what you believed.

But now you look around, and though dozens die at your hand, there are hundreds more, and you realize (with a strangely disconnected laugh) that you have been outmaneuvered. You realize that you can read the next move, but your opponent is, and always has been, ten steps ahead of you (and again, that disconnected humor hits, and all you can do is laugh).

Your Role was to be a master of Tactics, but the Black Queen was a master of Strategy, and in forgetting this, you have lost the Game.

You are the Knight, and you have the Skills, but in the end, you didn’t have enough.


	16. The Prince of Mind

You are the Prince of Mind. And, as your teammates prepare themselves at your orders, you begin to despair.

The enemy ahead is vast and mighty; the King has all of the power of the Black Queen, but where she was a scalpel, he is a broadsword (and it fits, you realize; you have a dozen strife specibi so that you would be prepared for any occasion, and you lead now the same way, trying to match weapon to scenario). The Queen was overpowered by the might of sixteen players united behind a single cause (a single leader, and you laugh at the thought because you know the truth), but the King is not so easily overpowered (because you have to play the right weapon, play the right card, and this time you aren’t sure you can). Might will play against might, and you aren’t sure it will be enough.

There are fifteen of your friends (and you laugh once more, because they haven’t been your friends for a long time. Now they are servants and nothing more) behind you, each as powerful as they can be (but none of them have Ascended, none but you, because you can’t be sure that your Will could overpower that of another God). They wield their weapons, call forth powers, and though you aren’t looking at them, you feel them behind you like a storm, like a tidal wave (and it’s apt, because storms and waves have no control, no finesse, they are just flows of power, and you know that this isn’t the right weapon, not the right card). But you aren’t looking at them; you’re looking ahead, at the fiery sun, the immense void, the mighty figure of the Black King in all of his glory.

You know what you could do. Where Power allowed you to overcome the Queen, Finesse could allow you to defeat the King. But the players (the shells) behind you have no finesse. They have no Will.

You took it from them.

That was your power; you took from them their will, and made them loyal (because you yearned for power, yearned for a position that did not belong to you). But in doing so, they can only follow your orders, and you cannot order them to have the finesse, the skill, that they had with their own Will. You can command them as a force (a wave, a storm), but a broadsword is not what you need here. You need a scalpel, and for that, you would have to give them their Will. But you hesitate, because if you do, you don’t know what will happen. You took them and used them as tools; would they follow you, even with the Black King ahead of them? Or would they turn on you?

You don’t know, and not knowing keeps you from making the choice you know is right.

So you order them forward, and as a Tempest strikes against a Sun, you despair.

You are the Prince, and you have forced them all into a Role that they might not survive.


	17. The Rogue of Mind

You are the Rogue of Mind, and as the cards fall into place, all you can do is smile.

It’s been a tricky game, Sburb. The Rules are nigh inscrutable, the End far out of reach, and the Stakes higher than you’ve ever known before. Your friends are so young, so vulnerable, and Sburb latches onto that weakness and pulls with a dark, knowing might. Sburb will devour them whole, given half a chance, and leave behind a bunch of broken children.

It’s a good thing they’ve got you around.

It shouldn’t have been easy. Your abilities aren’t powerful, not like your Heir or your Knight. They aren’t as far reaching as your Seer or your Witch. They aren’t even as flashy as your Bard.

But they are subtle, and that makes all the difference.

It’s like poker, you’ve realized. People who just play the cards lose. It’s those who know the metagame, the game outside the game, who will win in the end. The metaphor works well within Sburb, in all of its labyrinthine glory. You don’t just play the cards, after all. You play the Players.

And you cheat whenever possible, of course.

And so you begin your whisperings.

Your words are minor, at first; you whisper to an imp to go left instead of right, you alert a basilisk in the wrong direction, you convince an ogre that it was merely the wind, and nothing more. But soon your words are stronger, and all the more subtle for it.

In the dark, amethyst streets of Derse, you find a certain Dignitary, and a whisper keeps him from killing you. Another whisper, and you find yourself at the Archagent’s door, in chains. A few more whispers, and you have an ally, steadfast and true in his own stabby, conniving way.

A whisper here, a whisper there, and your Heir finds herself surrounded by forces stronger than her, led by a Brute. But in her death, she Rises, and you smile once more.

You love it when a plan comes together.

The Bard and the Knight suffer similar fates, but for the Seer you have a different plan. There are other whispering things in the darkness, and these whispers would tell your friends what they need to know, but you cannot hear them yourself. So you give another whisper here, and the Seer’s dreamself is dead, slain by a Droll little fellow. He will not Rise into Godhood, but now he will see the visions you know he must see.

Whispers echo in the dark, and your power grows.

Your friends haven’t seen you since the Game started, but that is as you intended; you must stay in the shadows, and whisper, for the sake of those who must win.

But one day, as you prepare to play against a much more cunning player (because the Queen knows how to play the Players as well as the Cards), you catch a look in the mirror. Skin like pitch welcomes your gaze, and eyes like the Pit look back at you, and even your smile is a white, ivory slash in the darkness. You look, and see yourself, twisted and broken, and for the first time you realize the truth.

They have been **_wHIsPerIng_** to you for a long, long time.

The mirror shatters, and you shatter with it.

You are the Rogue, and you make your own Way, but you have forgotten a Truth; there are horrors and terrors to be found in the grim, dark Ways of the Medium.


	18. The Seer of Mind

You are the Seer of Mind, and for once, you don’t know if you can make this choice.

Making choices has always been easy for you. That’s because you understand something few people ever do. Choices are not random. Choices are not guided by the meaningless hands of Luck. Choices are the logical end to an equation whose terms are made up of emotions, experiences, knowledge, and circumstance.

Choices are not random, and so, for those who understand, choices are simple; it is merely a matter of picking the most logical option, the selection that benefits you and yours the most. By taking everything into consideration, you make the right choice.

You still believe you made the right choice when it came to your wayward Sister, no matter the consequences that the cycle of revenge may have held. Your Sister needed to Pay, and a few written lines of text to the right person accomplished that perfectly well.

Some might call you psychopathic. Others would simply be politer and call you weird.

You have always preferred Just, if only because so few of your kind are.

When you entered the Game, you were unsurprised to find your Title matched you perfectly. To see into the mysteries of the mind, to plumb their depths, to bring out those thoughts into the open to be Judged; this has always been the realm of your purview. But the powers that came to you with your Title? Those were a surprise, though not an unwelcome one.

Alternate realities. Paths of continuities. The great Web of the Universe. These were yours to explore, to see, to know. And through knowing would you lead.

Oh, you weren’t obvious about it, of course. Your deliciously angry Knight (so fiery, but far deeper than he first appeared) would lead, and for all that would happen later, your Knight led well. But he couldn’t make every choice, and whenever he lay paralyzed between possibilities (and it happened oh so often; he was so delightfully easy to fluster), you were there with the answer.

You may not have shown it, but you felt a sort of kinship with your Time player, who did much the same as you; the both of you led the Game through its steps using information the normal Players could not know.

And the Game went so well. Few of your players really understood their roles, but your race is nothing if not capable, and all of your team played so beautifully. Watching (well, you think with a razor grin, smelling) your team in action was almost like seeing a jigsaw fall into place; the errant pieces all clicking one by one into a single, cohesive whole, with one end in mind, no matter how much the pieces may have differed separately.

And then it all went Wrong.

Much has happened since then. But you still see the possibilities. The Game still goes on, despite the words of your erstwhile leader. And while you still bear your Title, you will accept its responsibility.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself. But here and now, standing behind your errant Sister, your Thief, you prepare to flip a coin. Luck and Logic are about to play a game, and you know the outcome it has to come to, but your own emotions are in the way.

Can you really do this?

Can you make this choice, even for the good of your team?

Can you kill her?

The answer is no.

And soon after, as a Demon of green lightning and deep void ends you, you die knowing you failed.

You are the Seer, and you see the Story; the web of choices and consequences that makes up the Plot of your life. And as you watch yourself die in a timeline where you made the wrong choice, bound by needless emotion and misplaced sentiment, all you can do is smile as the coin lands where you knew it would.

Now it’s time to make a choice, but knowing the outcome either way makes the choice easy.

It’s only logical, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, Terezi, you lovable little psychopath you. You are way too much fun to write. I loved writing it with her failed timeline, then finishing it with her successful, Vriska killing one. A lot of these I plan before I write, sometimes well before I write it, but this one I had no idea what scene I was going to pick until I started writing.
> 
> And also, you will notice that I never refer to characters by name in the stories. This is because, A: I didn't want to figure out 144 interesting names, B: I didn't want to throw out 144 random names, and C: if I wasn't naming everyone else, then I wasn't going to name the Canon characters. It gives it a bit of a more mythological feel to it, as well.


	19. The Maid of Mind

You are the Maid of Mind, and you are starting to break down.

Researching has always been one of your gifts, and in Sburb it was no different. The moment you entered the Game you discovered everything you could about the Game, the Worlds, the Consorts, the Denizens, and most importantly, the Players.

And to your eternal dismay, you have discovered much.

To be a Maid is to be a Slave, you’ve discovered. You are a Slave to your Element, bound to serve it. But that didn’t seem to apply to you; how could you be a slave to Mind? You didn’t seem to gain any abilities, but your responsibilities were minor because of it. It seemed that, perhaps, you might have dodged the fate of other Maids.

That all changed when the Banshees came.

You aren’t certain exactly what combination of items your Rogue prototyped (and she refuses to say), but a portion of the Enemy don’t attack physically. They attack mentally. With deadly screams that tear minds to shreds, the Game had just gotten harder. And even if your team managed to defeat them, the Banshee’s scream stayed with them, indelibly.

That is, the screams stayed unless you cured them of it.

It was here that you found your purpose within the game. As the ravages of the Banshees wore at the minds of your friends, you cured it; you acted as the salve for the cracks and wear of the screams.

And through it all, you avoid telling them the truth; because the damage of the Scream does not simply disappear.

You have to take it into yourself.

This is what it means to be a Slave.

And day by day, while your friends are kept from the ravages of the Wails, your mind begins to deteriorate. You start seeing things that aren’t there. Certain smells, certain sensations, will catch you off guard and make you burst into tears. And the echoes of the Screams, high pitched, tearing, slithering, remain in your mind constantly.

You find yourself twitching constantly. You start to forget things. You start to forget people, and once almost attack one of your best friends because they looked dangerous.

You are starting to break.

But it might have been okay. Perhaps, in time, when the game was one, the ravages might have healed. Perhaps, in time, in a world of your own making, your mind would be allowed to heal, to recover, and it all would have been alright.

But that chance disappeared when you faced the Queen.

You knew, as your friends lined up with you against her, you knew what you were supposed to do. The Queen was a Banshee as well. You could see it in the slash of her smile, in the serpentine flicking of her tongue as she regarded you (and she only had eyes for you, it seemed, cruel and dark), and you knew that hers would be the Vast Wail that ended them, unless you fulfilled your role.

You had to take it in, every bit, so that your friends could fight her.

So you prepare, and steel yourself, and as your friends begin, pouring forth in a coordinated play of force and finesse, she opens her mouth and…

And she Sings.

This is no Scream, tearing and ripping like a storm. This is a Song, subtle and flowing, edging into the cracks of your minds and finding your weak places, but still as destructive (and more so for you, who had so many weak places to find).

And you try. You try to take it into yourself, to save your friends from the Song, but you have too many weak places, now. You are fearful and weak, now, and the bravery that kept you going has fallen in the face of the Song.

You don’t break. Your fall doesn’t come because it was too much, or too damaging, or too mighty.

You fall because you are afraid.

You fall because you give up.

And as your friends fall to her deadly Song, you fall knowing that you failed them.

You are the Maid, and you are bound by the Chains, but by failing in your responsibilities, you have lost your chance to Rise Up beyond them.

There is some recompense in this, however. Because, in Death, you are Free.


	20. The Sylph of Mind

You are the Sylph of Mind, and you finally feel proud of yourself.

Pride has never been one of your sins. You’ve never been the kind of person who felt very confident in much of anything regarding yourself, and the woman who raised you never helped much in that regard.

Your friends tried to help, though, and you always appreciated that.

When you entered the Game, you had thought that maybe, just maybe, you could finally be something, someone, that you could be proud of, but when you received your Title, your hopes were dashed.

Your friends were Knights and Rogues and Thieves and Mages. You were a Sylph. You weren’t supposed to have power; you were supposed to exist and thrive without it. You were supposed to be familiar with your element, but to use it? That wasn’t your fate.

It seemed like the game’s way of telling you to suck it up, to accept your fate, to remain mediocre.

When you learned about the Godtiers, you rejoiced. You hunted and sought for your own pedestal, your own Bed, because you knew that becoming a God would be a truly great achievement.

Well, you found it. Shattered and destroyed by one rampant creature or another, it was only an echo of its previous grandeur.

Your hopes dashed, you gave up. From then on, you just tried to play as best you could.

Even that didn’t help; in the end, your session was Doomed, your Doorway destroyed by a Demon of multicolored flame.

Now you hid, you and your friends, and for the most part you just stayed out of the way. There was no need for you around.

In your occasional conversations with your friends, you noticed that they, too, were dejected and dismayed. Even your best friend, the Thief, was gloomy, in a hugely uncharacteristic display.

It was the Thief that made you suspicious. Sure, things were bad, and their reward had been taken from them, but your Thief was never gloomy. Never. She was so well known for it that it was a cliché.

And, as you watched your friends, more and more, you started to see the irregularities, the strangeness, the pall and gloom that was so very unlike them.

And, when you felt the fingers on your own mind, you realized the truth.

Something subtle was trying to crawl into their minds, like a creeper vine. And you, somehow, were able to see it where others could not. You cast off the vines from your mind with ease, and you finally realize what your Role is supposed to be.

It took time, but eventually you made them see. Words here, and a hug here, and one huge heartfelt slap there, and one by one you started to wake them from their unnatural gloom. And the more you did it, the more you recognized the signs of it, the alien wrongness of the despair.

You brought them out of their misery, and brought them together once more.

This Demon, this brightly colored flame, thought it could defeat them through despair, through fear. But you saw through it. And you’ve brought your team together once more. And every time the despair tries to crawl in once more, you snap them out of it.

You are the only thing between them and the darkness, and as your team pulls itself together for one last, desperate fight, for once in your life, you feel proud.

You are the Sylph, and you know the Current, the Ebb and Flow of your own Mind. And any who try to intrude upon your Domain will see that it is Yours to Know, Yours to Understand, and Yours to Own.

Not Theirs.


	21. The Bard of Mind

You are the Bard of Mind, and your mission is a difficult one.

You’ve never felt like much of a Bard, to be perfectly honest. History, not music, has always been your preferred point of expertise. You tried, once, to learn the violin, but your attempts were, to be frank, horrifying. You aren’t quite sure your dog ever quite recovered.

But in history, you’ve found a passion. There are just so many things to know! The course of time, laid out in everything mankind knows, and perhaps more so in what it does not know. There’s a perfect balance between symmetry and spontaneity in humanity’s path through the ages, and you have merely scratched the surface of all there is to know.

Then Sburb comes along, and everything goes, to be perfectly clear, straight to hell.

Of course, there’s plenty to learn about Sburb, as well; it has a subtle history to it, seemingly plain and shallow on the surface, but underneath it is a substance as deep as the deepest oceans. But it isn’t for the sake of knowledge that you learn about Sburb. Sburb will never hold the delight that Earth did for you; in fact, it will always hold a place of hate in your heart for eradicating the wonderful, beautiful planet, and all who lived in it. No, to be perfectly honest, you learn about the Game so that you can beat it.

Then you learn something that shocks you. You have played this Game before.

How you learn this fact is something you don’t like to think about. Deals were made and bargains honored, and it made you realize that your place on Derse was probably well deserved. But the knowledge was worth it. You and your friends have played this Game before. Each time you have Failed, and in failing taken a desperate gamble. You have Scratched the Game many times.

This knowledge is fascinating, but ultimately useless; your Session goes well, almost like clockwork.

Until the End.

Things change. Your circumstances are different, and your players are, to be perfectly frank, completely without hope. One of them has discovered the Scratch mechanism, and is trying to convince the others to do it.

You are against the idea.

You try to convince them not to do it, but when your leader asks you why, it takes you aback.

For a moment, you don’t know why. You and your team have taken this step many, many times before, and to do it again seems hopeless to you.

And then it hits you, and everything becomes perfectly clear.

You and your team have been following a rhythm. The circumstances change, but the end result remains identical, and so your players follow along a path, a history, that ebbs and flows like a song, and then the Scratch makes the whole thing stick on repeat. It’s time to let the song play to its fullest. It’s time to take the next step of their history.

There are other options. This should not be one of them.

And they accept that.

You are the Bard, and you follow the Rhythm, the dance of men across Time’s eternal plain. And now, you are going to bring the Song to its completion, for better or worse. It’s time to break this discordant Scratch, and let the music flow.

Your mission is difficult, but you cannot repeat the mistakes of the Past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written before we knew what the Scratch was supposed to do, precisely, so it may not match the actual Homestuck mechanics entirely, but oh well.


	22. The Mage of Mind

You are the Mage of Mind, and you are about to face your End.

You’ve known about it for a long time. You were Awake, after all, even if you didn’t know what that meant, per say. Things whispered to you in the dark, and in their mutterings much of your life was revealed. Things lost, and things gained, friendships made, and a love never achieved, and most of all, an awe inspiring Game that would plague them all.

This, and more, the whispers told you.

And at the end of it all was a great void in their knowledge of your life; your End. You knew enough to know that there was no way out of it for you.

Eventually, you would die.

One day, the great Game the whispers spoke of came to you and your friends. And you played, as you always knew you would.

It was then that you were gifted with your greatest curse; the trappings of the Mage of Mind.

Intelligence can be a blessing, to most, but this was no simple intelligence. This was an expansion of the Mind on a level beyond which you had ever dreamed. Patterns began to develop out of chaos, conclusions drawn from observation more keen than you had ever known might exist, and your Mind grew ever more expansive the further you progressed.

The Queen sought to kill you all, but your mind undid the plots her cunning set forth. The King commanded great armies, but his movements were as plain as day to you, and you played the Prospitians against those of Derse far more masterfully than their own Rulers ever could.

You discovered the Quest Beds, and though your dreamself had been slain days before, as it slept, you extrapolated the locations of those belonging to your team. Within days, all had Risen, far more powerful than most creatures in the Medium had the capability of fighting.

Denizens began to fall. A Queen was set up for defeat. A King was surrounded.

All as the whispers told you, long ago.

You are not a God, not like your friends, but that’s alright for you. You couldn’t have handled immortality for long.

You haven’t slept for days. Your mind is too busy to sleep. And you know you’ll never sleep again.

One day, your own intelligence will drive you mad, because you simply do not have the ability to stop the mighty machine your own Mind has become.

The Denizens destroyed, the Queen killed, the King annihilated, your friends assemble before the Door.

And here lies the end of what the Whispers told you. Here lies your own End, as you crumble into insanity.

You fall to your knees, your Mind breaking under the stress, and you are no longer a mighty Machine. You are simply a broken boy, failing under the rigors of the Game.

And yet.

The Thief turns to you (a love never achieved), and there is something in her eyes that confuses you, even as thought begins to grind and spark within your brain. There is certainty.

She kisses you, and in kissing you she takes something away. You close your eyes, and with the ghost of her lips on yours, you sleep.

You are the Mage, and your fate is to have Power, but lack the Control to keep it from consuming you. Luckily for you, you have those who are willing to give you what you lack. Your Thief has stolen your own Power from you, and in doing so, saved you.

And when you wake, you will be free to live in the world you have created.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mage is one of my favorites, personally; it was here that I decided that I might take side characters from the Titles I'd done and do a Title for them later. The Thief here will be, eventually, the Thief of Void.


	23. The Thief of Mind

You are the Thief of Mind, and it is all yours. Every goddamn bit of it.

From the smallest to the greatest, the weakest to the mightiest, the minds of all who oppose you are yours to command.

It’s like a dream come true; to take, and in taking, grow. To grow, and in growing, change. To change, and in changing, become who you were meant to be. Who the Clouds always told you that you would be.

You grew up poor and pathetic, beaten down by a World that didn’t care. But you always knew what was coming, and so you waited.

The Game comes, and the World ends, but you’ve always known (and never cared anyway), so there’s no surprise for you, only a vehement anticipation of the spoils to come. In the End, it’ll be your World, anyway.

Your friends start out frightened, but you expected that. They didn’t dream of this. This is all brand new to them.

But you’ll bring them into it, and if you have anything to say about it, they’re going to be as good as you.  
This game, and its rewards, is yours and theirs alike, in the end.

You enter the game, and are given the Title you always knew you would have. And with it comes power.

And so you Take.

You build your army slowly. A few imps here, and a few there. You can’t Take them all, however; you have to climb the echeladder, after all. But you Take, and sequester them, and you build your army.

Soon you progress further. Ogres and basilisks, of all shapes and sizes, join your army. Soon come others, carapace people from either side of the conflict, and they, too, are Taken.

And soon, as you always knew you would, you find your Quest Bed. You take your own life there, and you Rise Up.

All according to plan.

Immortal, and even more powerful than before, you Take another; the fabled White Queen of Prospit.

With her at your side, you kill the White King, and give his scepter to the Black King. Suspicious, but willing, he initiates the Reckoning.

Just as you wanted.

The White Queen is not as strong as her Derse counterpart, but with the power of your army at her back, she defeats the Black Queen handily.

Then, you Take the Black King, last of the Derse Royals. And, as your dominion over the Medium seems complete, you execute the second to last step of your plan.

You exile your whole army, bit by bit, onto the ruined, forsaken Earth.

Your team, nervous at the actions they have watched you do, but unknowing of the true scope of your plan, play their way through the Game, and slay their Denizens. They create the Ultimate Alchemy, and prepare to enter the Doorway into the World they had created.

They open the Door, and it’s there, waiting. But you don’t go through. You Take them, but only for a few moments; just long enough to walk them through the door, and close it, forever, behind them.

You turn, and fly away, to the last, solitary asteroid of the Veil. You watch it draw ever closer to Skaia, and soon, Skaia opens one last portal to save itself.

You Exile yourself to Earth, ruined and devastated, and smile as you survey the sands.

Your Army is scattered, at the moment, but they will find you.

Your People are lost, but they will come to you in time.

Your Nation is fledgling, and it will take time to strengthen. But you have the Eternity of Godhood behind you.

You are the Thief, and you know the Prize. But the Prize was far greater than just a Mind, for that was simply the means to an even greater Prize. You knew the true Reward to be obtained, and you Took it.

The World is Yours. Every goddamn bit of it.

Long Live the King.


	24. The Page of Mind

  
You are the Page of Mind, and you think that maybe, just maybe, you can do this.

You’ve never been intelligent. You’ve never been clever. You’ve never been cunning. You’ve spent your life trying to be more than what you are, but mostly you fail.

You can’t read quickly; it doesn’t come to you well, and every word feels like a struggle.

You aren’t good with numbers; anything beyond basic addition and subtraction causes your mind’s gears to grind, and it all seems to stop.

You aren’t really intelligent at all. You’ve been called stupid, and dumb, and a million other things. You’re slow. But you still try.

Because your Dad never called you slow. He’s never called you dumb. He’s never called you stupid. He might be bound to a wheelchair, but he still tries and succeeds at what he wants to do, and he’s taught you to do the same.

So you try, because that’s what your Dad would do. You try so goddamn hard, but the words still won’t flow, the numbers still fog your mind, and all you can think of is ‘slow, slow, slow’.

Then the Game comes.

Your friends are terrified, but also excited. You’re just terrified. They’re smart. They’re capable. They will do well in the Game, but you? You’re going to fail, hard.

But knowing that you’re going to fail doesn’t stop you from trying. Because that’s what your Dad always taught you, right?

Page of Mind, the game called you, and it feels mocking; pages have never brought you anything good, nothing but molasses words and foggy numbers. And Mind? It makes you laugh. Even the Game is making fun of you.

But.

But for all that, you still give it your best shot. You have a Bat, and you aren’t very good with it, but pretty soon the Imps stop bothering you, and soon after that the Ogres start looking a little wary, and something in you glows at that.

Then you find the puzzles.

To progress through your world you’ve got to solve these goddamn puzzles, and everyone knows you’re too stupid to figure it out, but your friends are too busy solving their own puzzles, so you sit down and stare at them. There are great big walls full of text, clues and instructions for the puzzles ahead, but you can’t make heads or tails of it, because you’re too goddamn slow.

But you sit anyway, and you read.

The reading comes slow, but it does come. A few hours, perhaps, or longer, but bit by bit the words start to come together. The clues start to jump out at you, and when they do, you give a little shout of joy.

You follow the clues into the next puzzle, and of course it’s number, it had to be numbers, because the Game is still mocking you. But you sit anyway, rock in hand, and start drawing on the floor. The rock leaves a nice white trail, and you start trying to make sense of the numbers. You have to scuff out a lot of what you write when you get things wrong, and soon almost the whole floor of the large room is covered in white markings that are hardly making sense, but there’s a picture here, there’s an answer starting to pull itself together, and you can feel it. So you try.

And you succeed, and something in you is glowing.

It brings you to the next step, and the next, and the next, and it takes time, lots and lots of time, but your knowledge almost seems to grow with it. Reading starts to become easier; it’s still slow, but sentences and words almost start putting themselves together. The numbers become more difficult, but you have a big floor, a good rock, and lots of time, so you scribble and write and calculate as best you can. You screw up a lot, but you’ve got time.

You haven’t contacted your friends in a while, but when you do, you find that they’re all stuck, befuddled by the quest their planets give them. It shocks you to realize that you have been succeeding, actually progressing, where even your friends could not.

So you decide to go help them. You’ve got one more puzzle left on your own planet, but you’ve got friends to help as well, and for once you feel like maybe you can actually do this.

You have time, and you might not be smart, but you’re persistent. And maybe that’s what matters.

You are the Page, and you have been learning the Lessons. What you were not given freely, you can gain with Experience. And with Experience you can wield your gift with Wisdom, because you know what it’s like to Lack.

And you think you’re making your Dad proud.


	25. The Witch of Mind

You are the Witch of Mind, and you don’t really understand anymore.

You thought you had it all worked out. All of your life you’ve been tossed around by your so called ‘friends’. They’ve taken everything from you; your dignity, your leg, your lusus. They’ve blamed you, and used you, and taken you for all that your worth, and had the gall to call you scum when you reacted in kind.

But then the Game came, and you were given hope.

You have Control, now. You started with the Imps, and while it was good practice, they were worthless for your own schemes.

You had a Plan, and you were going to Make Them Pay.

You could be overt about it, but no, that would be too easy. You wanted them to tear each other apart, but that would be tricky. You’d have to be subtle.

You Controlled your Knight, and made her say a few select words to your Rogue, and as you relinquished control, watched the argument you started last for an hour. Here you Manipulated your Seer as she was about to advise the Mage, and made her give information that was just slightly off. The Mage was injured, and he blamed the Seer.

You continued to do this; you sowed discontent among your team (and with fourteen of you there, there was much discontent to sow), placing arguments, giving snide remarks, creating disinformation, and soon your whole group was in disarray. Within days, they were ready to tear each other apart.

But then it all changed.

Within the course of an hour, the arguments you had worked so hard to start, the relationships you had worked so hard to destabilize, the mistakes you had tried to cause them to make, all seemed to disappear. Somehow they clued into the fact that there was an outside force working on their minds, and when that happened, they all turned to you.

You denied it, but they knew, and you couldn’t figure out how they knew, how they figured it out so quickly.

Your leader says it was because you didn’t understand.

Understand what?

Understand them. Understand their personalities, their quirks, their lives. You didn’t understand all the little things that made them who they were, and so your manipulations quickly fell. To manipulate, you have to know, and you didn’t.

You tell him that you understand perfectly well. All of them, every one, is despicable and vile, and your Control was perfect, bringing out the worst of them against each other, brought out the hatred that they had all leveled out against you. You understood them better than they understood themselves.

He looks sad, and that makes you furious. Why should he look sad? You don’t want his pity. You want his heart on a platter, and you wanted it to be subtle, you wanted a grand plot of machinations and wheels within wheels to bring them to their knees, but you can settle for less.

You can settle for ripping it out yourself.

So you charge forward, but he’s much faster than you, and you fall to the ground, stunned. He binds you with something, like chains, but more so, more than just physical, and you feel your power fall away.

And you don’t understand.

You are the Witch, and you had Control, but you lacked the Understanding to bring your own schemes to completion. You don’t understand, and so you fall.

How could it all have gone so wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll find that Witches are rarely successful or happy, with me. That's because I defined the Witch of Time with the words "Control without Understanding". The Witch class is then defined either by her Control of her element or, more commonly, her lack of Understanding of it. As you can tell, this isn't exactly a happy thing to base plots off of. Princes have the same problem; their definition is pretty negative. The Page has the opposite problem; he's nearly always successful.
> 
> I have a whole list of these notes, and I've put in a lot of detail. BECAUSE I LIKE MYTHOLOGY AND RULES AND STUFF THAT'S WHY.


	26. The Heir of Mind

I am(Iam)I am

The Heir of Mind.

And I understand everything(AllTheThings[ALLofIT{atiredmemebutexpectedbythosewhoobserve}]).

I was an unremarkable girl (DevotedButQuiet[insIGNifiCANt]), before. I was obsessed with trivial things(SUCHaWASTEofTIME[useless]), and convinced that Life(wonderfulANDgrand[biTTERsWEEt]) was my greatest enemy.

I have since been proven wrong(Wrong[WrOnG{wRONg}]).

This bloated monstrosity(thisGAMEthatTOYSwithUS[ThisDarkAndTwistedMechanism{SbUrB}]), this terror that annihilated my home(dearHOME[sWEetHOme]); this is my Enemy(MyFoe[mYnEmEsIs]).

I have been granted something on a scale far beyond those of my teammates. This is fitting(theyDOnotUNDERSTAND[tHesCALe]), for they do not understand the scale of the conflict we now fight. To them, even now, this is all but a game(howWRONG[HowNaive]).

I know the Truth(TrUTh[truth]).

I was granted a Title(TheHeir[theCHOSEN]) and a Destiny(towin[toFINISHit]), and I shall use it.

I was granted the supreme powers of the Mind(Intelligence[TheGestalt]). Not Control(useless[unNECesSARy]), for that is unnecessary for me. No, I was granted something greater(grander[FarMorePowerful]).

I am now a Gestalt (ATangleOfMindsAllToOneEnd[powerfulandintelligentandplentiful{WEareMANY}])

When I turn my Mind (ourMinds[TheMany]) to a task, I am bringing the full force of a hundred (aTHOUSAND[AMillion{coUNTlESS}]) intelligences to bear.

Some would call me insane(crazy[mAd{ButThisIsUntrue}]) but this isn’t true. I am simply beyond (above[infinite]) them.

And I will use this to win (ToExcel[toBEATthisGODFORSAKENgame{andallwhostandinourway}]).

None will stand (WillFace[willDAREtoTRY]) against me.

I am the Heir, and I know the Truth(TheEnd[tHeREVelaTIOn]).

I(I[I{I}I]I)I

Am(Am[Am{Am}Am]Am)Am

Legion(Legion[Legion{Legion}Legion]Legion)Legion

([{Let the Game begin}])

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this way more than I should have. CRAZY HEIR GIRL IS CRAZY(insane[BoNkErS{TOTallyDELudingHERSelf}]). Also, this was all supposed to be centered, but I can't seem to make that work. ALAS.


	27. The Guide of Dreams

What would it take for things to be Quiet?

What would you have to do?

You are the Guide of Dreams, and you don’t have the answer.

You yearn for a Silence in sleep that has eluded you for a very long time. You had it, once. You’ve tried to describe it to your friends, but metaphors only serve to cheapen the memory, to filter the pureness of the feeling into something that only pales in comparison to the true thing.

But you try.

The Stillness of the night in repose. The Quiet of the snow, softly falling. The Calmness of a breath, held gently in preparation.

Faulty metaphors, but beautiful and descriptive in their own way.

Your Sleep was once something like that, something still and quiet and calm, filled with an immense, soft _nothing_ that you took for granted in your younger years.

But the Game took that from you (as it would, years later, take everything else from you and your friends).

The Dreams came, and stole the Silence away.

Dreams of amethyst labyrinths and black shell, wicked teeth and shaded looks. Dreams of golden towers and ivory hands, gentle eyes and respectful bows. Dreams of flight, through purple and gold and an infinite black, and through it all the ever present Shine of something Infinite (a blue and white sun, a sphere of Potential, a prize to be won).

And through it all, the ever present Warnings.

Warnings that came from Darkness, Warnings that came from the Light. Warnings that wHiSpErEd from the writhing chaos, and Warnings that _**Shined**_ from the drifting clouds.

You had been Chosen. To Prepare, and in Preparing, Lead your friends on the Path. That is your Quest.

You just wanted the Quiet back.

But you tried. You did what you could, even if your friends didn’t believe you (and they wouldn’t, not until the Game stole everything from them as it had from you), you tried. And for all that it seemed pointless, it helped; as soon as the Game was underway, they understood, and with a speed that shocked you (despite the whispers and visions telling you that it would happen exactly this way) they snapped into action.

Every desperate thing you tried to tell them was suddenly remembered, and they looked to you to Guide them (with remorse in their eyes, as they understood that they should have listened before, but you always understood; how could they have believed you?).

And you Guide them. In waking and in sleep, through Planets and across the Medium and through your Dreamselves that fly through Amethyst and Amber, you Lead, to the best of your ability.

Until one day, your Dream lives are stolen from you (by an agent of black, by a treacherous plot, by the machinations of an Archagent).

You lose them, and in losing them, for a brief moment, you almost hope that you might have found the Silence once more.

You should have known better. And in time, in the writhing, formless chaos that lay Furthest from Skaia, in the eldritch arms of beings of a scope beyond anything you’d ever known before, you begin to learn.

Your Dreams bring you to something akin to Hell, now, but you still learn.

Because that is your Quest.

And these things, these horrors from beyond time and space, they know things. Things you need to know, so that you can continue to Lead.

But it hurts. And every day you feel like breaking down. Every night you feel like letting go, and you wonder if the endless ocean of Insanity is preferable to this.

You wonder if Madness is quiet.

But you are needed, and it keeps you from the edges of insanity.

Because your suffering is for a purpose.

And in time, through the efforts of your friends, and the knowledge you have obtained, and trials you have overcome, you find the end of the Path.

The Ultimate Alchemy.

A new world.

You enter it, and Guide your friends into their new home.

And when you sleep, all you feel is the blessed, wonderful Quiet.

You are the Guide of Dreams.

And you have found your Silence once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, Syvanna! This sounded like a great idea, and ended up being perfect to write. Thanks for the request!
> 
> Extra Note: I listened to Louder than Thunder, by the Devil Wears Prada, on repeat for writing this.


	28. The Scourge of Self

You are the Scourge of Self, and while your Title scares the others, it only solidifies something you already understood.

Besides, it’s good for them to be afraid. You can use that.

A few hours ago, you were children. Now you are Tools, and to act otherwise is a crime against the Game and its great Purpose. You will fulfill that purpose, and the others will follow you.

Or else.

By nature of your race, your teammates have difficulty in this. That is alright; they will learn.

You will show them.

In the beginning, they struggle against your teaching. One even dares to attack you.

You show her the error of her ways.

They fall back, but in time they surround you once more. Foolish.

When you are finished with them, they’ve stopped fighting. They will heal, soon enough.

You and your team will create a new Universe, but to do so, you must focus.

Your first challenge is to purge yourself of all unnecessary emotions. Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Love. All of these must go.

It’s simpler than you thought it would be.

Next is to force the others to do the same. It is exactly as difficult as you thought it would be.

Yours is an angry race. Yours is a vicious race. Yours is a vindictive race. All of these must be purged. You will do it for them.

A Universe is at stake, and they have been intended for this Destiny from the beginning.

So you will prepare them for it. And, when necessary, you will be harsh.

But it is for a good cause.

You will be a Punishment to all who err.

You will be a Chastening of those who let their own petty problems interfere in the grand Game.

You will be a Reckoning for those who cannot let go of their own insecurities in the name of the Greater Good.

You are the Scourge, and you will be the whip that keeps them in line, for the sake of their Destiny.

And though they will hate you, and fear you, they will heed you.

Or else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one done by request from the MSPA forums, this Title really intrigued me. Specifically, the word Scourge was interesting; many use it nowadays to mean something like Sickness or Illness, but it was actually the name of a whip. So, the definition would be closer to Punishment than anything else. Which is why I went the way I did with it.


	29. The Mage of Chaos

You are the Mage, and you understand.

Understanding has come hard for you. Not long ago, you were young, and with youth there was a lack of care, a lack of knowledge, a lack of experience, that Sburb quickly took from you.

With the Game came a Purpose. It took from you your Home, and sought to give you a Universe.

Did this make sense? No. Did this whole construct, this immense machine of sense and nonsense, ever really make sense? No.

But that’s the beauty of it.

Within Sburb, the laws don’t apply. Its build is eldritch, its parts nonsensical, its workings unknowable, and its purpose grand.

The Medium is Chaos incarnate. A formless, chaotic void from which the World will be built. It is primordial and primal and full of potential that you feel destined to realize.

Chaos is more than just the opposite of Order. It is both the prerequisite to, and the eventual end of, Order. Order comes out of Chaos, and will end in Chaos once more.

You understand this, and so you do what you can to fulfill your step in the grand plan of the Universe.

But sometimes, effort isn’t enough. Sometimes, success requires more than just the desire to succeed.

Sometimes success is impossible.

With two of your number dead, and another permanently broken, your game looks impossible to win.

So you decide to redefine success.

Should that be so surprising? Should it be a shock that you, an emissary of Chaos, decide that following the typical path to the obvious victory is the wrong path? Should it be so astonishing that you’ve decided that maybe there are multiple ways to win, and maybe the Prize is something different than what your team expects?

You don’t think it should be.

You find the ruins of the great mechanism that would have caused the Scratch, and you get to work. This mechanism had the potential, you learned, to deconstruct your Session down to its most basic parts, and reorder it in such a way that the great Game could be tried once more.

With time, you begin to recreate the Machine, but with a different purpose.

Within Chaos is infinite potential, but no safety. With Chaos, anything was possible, but nothing was probable.

Fortunately, you had an idea.

It was already determined that alternate timelines were a thing that could happen. The Machine, by nature, would start a whole new tree of timelines, branching out forever into the infinite reaches of Time. But to do so, it had to delete the old Session.

You simply decided to remove the part of it that deleted that. The Old and the New would coexist, separate in their pasts, but at the present, at the activation of the Machine, they would be forever tied.

You don’t know what will happen, then. Perhaps both Sessions will be destroyed. Perhaps they will be combined, and your broken Session can ride on the coattails of the New to victory. Perhaps what would result would be completely unrecognizable.

You don’t really care, either way.

You’ve created a Machine of infinite potential, and in the end, no matter the result, you are content with your success here.

You are the Mage, and your blessing is to have Power, with no Control. And was that not the very definition of Chaos? The Infinite without End, the Eternal without Beginning, Power without Control; Chaos, in all of its glory.

You smile, knowing that whatever happens next, whatever end they may come to, you have won.

You press the button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another request from the Forum, done for Dermonster. I really looked into some of the other meanings of 'Chaos' for this one (beyond the obvious "Opposite of Order" definition), and I think it really made this one shine. It is one of my favorites (right up there with the Heir of Mind, which I really love).


	30. The Prince of Heart

You are the Prince of Heart, and you aren’t quite sure what the hell your Title is supposed to mean.

It’s like, what are you supposed to do, sit around and wait until you’re the King of Heart? And what do you do then, rule over the great and grand kingdom of Heart?

Seriously, it makes no sense.

But little about this Game does. Alchemiters and Denizens, Consorts and Dreamselves, Godtiers and Giant Freaky Frogs; Sburb is one big mass of confusion pretending to be a game when it’s obviously the creation of some mad inventor who went twenty-five feet off the deep end.

That’s an exact measurement, and you’re sticking to it.

But, despite this all, there’s one thing that really makes it all worthwhile.

The Maid.

You may not understand what your title meant, but hers fits her perfectly. A young maid, beautiful and sweet, and perfect in every way.

Except, of course, for the fact that she isn’t actually YOUR young maid. She’s someone else’s.

The Knight already had his claws (and you’ve never met him but you’re sure they’re claws) in her, and had suckered her in, drawn her into some sort of spell (with Sburb, anything was possible, after all). And the Bard been trying to convince you that it’s really just love, true love, and that if you looked elsewhere you might be able to find your own true love, but you think that maybe the Bard doesn’t have all her marbles in the right place.

You’ve decided to prove to the Maid that the Knight is no good for her. She deserves a Prince.

Time passes, and things change. The Game starts to make more sense to you, and you are beginning to have an inkling of what your title might mean.

You defeated him. You didn’t have powers, or magic, or science; you didn’t even really have skill. Just some dumb luck. But you stood victorious over his unconscious body, and turned to the Maid, sure that she would see now that the Knight was worthless.

Her face had contorted with rage, and as she went to attack you, weapon in hand, your heart broke. You considered, for a moment, one single, dark moment, doing something irreversible to her. Murder tempted your thoughts.

You turned them aside, and let her hit you.

You awoke in the arms of the Bard, crying her eyes out. You were bleeding, profusely, but even worse, you felt empty. You should be dead, but the Bard kept you alive, and you wondered why. Your mistakes, your arrogance, your jealousy, had just been laid bare in front of her eyes, in front of everyone’s eyes. Why had she bothered?

It took time for you to learn the answer to that. Time and some soul searching. The Knight had survived (though he would never fully recover), and the Maid had calmed herself before she killed you outright. The others despised you, and probably would, for a time.

All of the others, that was, except for the Bard.

She stood by you when others would have abandoned you, and cared for you as you recovered.

She was batty at times, perhaps, and maybe sort of awkward, but she was there for you when you didn’t deserve you.

You don’t show yourself to your team for days, but when you do, it’s with the Bard at your side, and repentance in your heart.

You are the Prince, and you’ve learned a harsh truth; that sometimes, your first choice, your first desire, is not the one that will bring you happiness. Sometimes, it is the second fate that will bring you what you are looking for. You have to accept that you were wrong.

In time, they will forgive. And in the meantime, you have the Bard at your side.

You think that maybe, you've found some measure of happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of the Heart classes! Sometimes, I'll have Titles with characters that have a vaguely similar setup to one of the Homestuck kids. In this case, the Prince is obviously only a couple of steps removed from Eridan, but it's those couple of steps that cause him to have something akin to success.


	31. The Witch of Heart

You are the Witch of Heart, and you don’t really understand your title.

You’ve done research, of course, but it seems to have come for naught. There’s a fair amount of information about Witches, but none of it seems to fit you. Seriously, Control without Understanding? That seems almost trite, and in no way applicable to you.

It doesn’t help that your title hasn’t actually given you any power. You Alchemized a nice Ring that’s allowed you to manipulate some pretty awesome powers, but your Title itself doesn’t give you a damn thing.

Your Page contacts you, but you brush him off. You used to love talking to him, but you are far too busy. This Game isn’t going to win itself, and you have to know your role if you’re going to fill it.

You continue your research as you explore your land, translating ruins full of writing and old tomes somehow written in a coded version of English. Others talk to you from time to time, but you ignore them. When your Page doesn’t stop bugging you, you snap at him. You feel bad, afterward, but you don’t apologize; the fate of at least one world is at stake, and you have to figure this out.

You bury yourself in the research; your waking hours are spent in ruins and fragments, and your dreams in the library of Prospit. You shun all contact, and find yourself becoming more vehement in your anger at interruptions.

But the Page won’t stop bothering you, and you find yourself getting angry.

You used to like him. Perhaps more than just like. But he just doesn’t seem to understand that right now, there are more important things going on. You have to focus, and you can’t with him bothering you at every turn.

So you say some things to him. They aren’t pleasant.

He stops contacting you.

You’re left in sweet silence, and you continue your work.

Work that, in the end, is useless. Sburb is a game designed not to be understood, and it foils your every move to work it out.

In the end, you break down. It’s over. It’s done. You’re tired, and you’re distraught, and you never want to read another word again.

So you try to find someone to talk to, but everyone is curt and tense with you. So you go to your Page.

He blocks you.

Distressed, you try to find him. Eventually, you do, but when he looks you in the eyes, there’s a coldness there that wasn’t there before.

He walks away without saying a word, and you realize you’ve lost something precious.

You are the Witch, and you’ve figured it out. You had it. You had a deep friendship that might have been something more, but because you couldn’t be bothered to understand, because you denied a distressed friend in need, you have lost it.

You stand in the fragments of a relationship you don’t think you can mend, and you cry, knowing that it’s your fault.


	32. The Page of Heart

You are the Page of Heart, and that makes no sense to you.

Matters of the Heart have never really made sense to you, anyway. You suspect you know the reasons why (and words like ‘abandonment issues’ and ‘unwanted child’ bounce around in your head, but you ignore them), but knowing the reasons why doesn’t solve the problem.

You find your friends barely tolerable, at the best of times, though you admit that your life would be considerably more boring without them around to talk to. And then there’s that annoying girl who is always far too comfortable with being intrusive (though a part of you knows that ‘inquisitive’ is not the same as ‘intrusive’, and you ignore this as well).

She asks about your life (boringly rich), your hobbies (alarmingly few), and your guardian (you don’t talk about your Aunt, and you tell her so sharply), but when your curt answers are given, she simply gives a little text *shrug* and starts talking about her own life.

You know everything about her, it seems, but you understand nothing, and not understanding makes you even more terse, and a little ruder with each conversation.

It doesn’t deter her.

When Sburb comes, it is a pleasant distraction. You never cared for the world, and the few people that you might have felt distraught at losing are right here with you.

And with the Game comes something that you’ve lacked; privacy.

Your server doesn’t bother you, and most of the others are too busy with their own issues to bother you, even the annoying girl, and you find yourself pleasantly alone (though a part of you wonders what the girl might say about your consorts, or your planet, or your title, and you surprise yourself with the fact that you already know what she would say, but you ignore the thoughts telling you that maybe you understand her more than you thought).

You get stronger, you fight, and for a time you don’t hear from the annoying girl.

And strangely (though you always expected it, and you ignore the thought again), you find yourself missing her text.

So, for the first time in the whole time you’ve known each other, you contact her first.

You’re curt and rude, of course; not that much has changed. But she hasn’t changed either, and she’s still as brightly undeterred by your attitude as ever.

You end the conversation quickly, but you soon find yourself missing her text once more. So you contact her again.

It’s strange, this dialogue you have with her. You are short and rude and not a very nice person, but you keep coming back to her, and she never seems to mind (and you know why. It’s harder to ignore this thought.).

Then something changes.

You contact her, but instead of her typical happy response, all you get is two words.

 _It hurts._

You panic, and in panicking something within you breaks through.

You verbally tear through your friends until you figure out her location, and as soon as you do you go. You find her surrounded by monsters and in pain, and you descend (like a fiery chariot, like a guardian angel, like someone with something dear to protect, and you can’t ignore the words any longer).

They die, and you hold her dying body in your arms.

You know what to do.

You’ve figured out much about the game, and you know about the Beds. You take her to her own.

She passes away as you place her on the bed, and you can only hope you got there soon enough.

Your answer comes in a flash of light, as she Rises Up.

She soon finds you, and you can’t find it in yourself to be snide at the black hooded pajamas she’s wearing. You think that might be progress on your part.

You are the Page, and you must learn the Lessons. But some lessons require a Teacher, and you are lucky to have found yours.

You take her hand, and you don’t plan on letting go.


	33. The Mage of Heart

You are the Mage of Heart, and you think that rocks.

You are, and have always been, _soooo smoooooth_. You’re like a kid Casanova, here. At least, that’s what your Uncle tells you, and you believe him utterly.

Girls rock (apparently, but sometimes you aren’t quite ready to admit that they might not be cootie-filled monstrosities), and having a girlfriend would be like, the high point of your life.

And somehow, you manage to have fifteen of them.

Sure, you’ve never met, but the sixteen of you have known each other for, like, years. They’re girls, and they’re friends of yours. That means they’re your girlfriends, right? This logic is perfect in every way.

(It’s entirely possible that that you are, in fact, as immature as most thirteen-year-olds are, unlike the typical Sburb player).

Plus there’s those weird girls who keep trolling you about ‘imminent doom’ and stuff being ‘all your fault’, but you like to think they’re just macking on you.

Oh, and the strange white-text girl who is mostly just imperious and arrogant and stuff. You think it’s funny to listen to her, because she seems to think she’s some sort of omnipotent combination of a Barbie Doll, a sewing kit, and some special code or something.

So yeah, you’re basically rolling in girls, even if a lot of them like to say that you’re kind of annoying or whatever. Your Uncle is so proud of your smoothness.

So, then the Game comes, and THAT’s a big shocker, but all of your girlfriends are okay, so you’re happy. And, in addition, you get a cool title!

And, apparently, you get cool powers, and you do feel something strange when you focused really hard, but it didn’t happen again, so you put it out of your mind.

As it turned out, your power was something truly epic in scale. So epic, in fact, that once it was let loose, there was no stopping it. A wave of force echoed out into the Medium and beyond, affecting something deep inside every living person connected to the Medium, human, troll, carapace, or First Guardian.

Well, it affected every _female_ living person, at least.

It starts out slow. Friends that never really talked to you much are suddenly very chatty. The weird troll girls slowly stop giving out their messages of doom and just start talking to you. Carapace girls keep appearing at your tower to say hi. Even the white-text girl is suddenly much less imperious and a little friendlier.

You start to think that this is pretty nice. You figure that the whole ‘being tolerated by people’ thing is a pleasant thing to have.

Unfortunately for you, while it may have started slow, it would quickly gain speed.

You find yourself butting into memos full of arguments between your friends, arguments mostly full of sniping and insults but still centered on you. The carapace girls keep leaving your dreamself gifts while you’re awake, and your dream room is full of junk and only getting fuller. Your Server keeps intimating that she wants to come meet you, and the thought scares you slightly for reasons you don’t quite understand.

It gets worse.

Pretty soon, you’re on the run from amorous girls at all angles. The Black Queen has issued a warrant for your dreamself’s arrest, and the White Queen keeps sending you messages saying that you can hide from the Black Queen’s agents in her castle, and somehow you can hear the eyebrow waggles in that statement. The white-text girl’s talking about how she knows everything, and she means, everything, and would you like her to teach you some things? The troll girls are apparently halfway to figuring out a way to get into your session, and there are fifteen powerful, jealous girls all trying to find you, and it occurs to you that you are only thirteen and you aren’t quite sure what you’d do with a real girlfriend anyway.

You’re hiding on another planet in a very dark cave and all you can think about is that your title SUCKS and was that a giggle you just heard at the entrance?

You are the Mage, and your fate is to have Power, but lack the Control necessary to keep it from harming you.

And if this isn’t the textbook definition of Power without Control YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IS.

And, far away, your Uncle sheds a single, manly tear of pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I regret nothing!
> 
> This was so much fun to write.


	34. The Rogue of Heart

  
You’ve spent your life learning the subtleties of romance. The cooling waters of Auspistice, the burning passions of Kismesissitude, the earthy stability of Moirallegiance, and perhaps best of all, the breathy heights of Matespritship; you immersed yourself in the lore and the legends, the stories and the sagas, the mysteries and the subtleties, and you lost yourself among them.

Finding and defining the subtle differences in the relationships of your friends became your passion, and you felt as if you had found your calling.

You also found your soulmate.

He didn’t know you very well, and for a long time you were too afraid to even talk to him. But something about him drew you. It was almost as if it was destined, like it had been decided long ago. You were patient, however; in time, you were sure, you’d both be ready.

So you waited.

Your situation didn’t change, much; you got to know your friends better, but that spark between you and your soulmate never came to pass. But you still were hesitant. Something had to come to pass, something had to happen; this was the way the sagas worked. The most epic of matespritships weren’t made by the random meeting, but instead by destiny; they were thrown together in an epic adventure, and through their experiences the relationship would grow.

When Sgrub came, it was almost a dream come true.

Your soulmate was a leader, uniting your team together to progress through the Game, and you felt that maybe, maybe this was the time.

But you saw the fear, the stress in his eyes, and you hesitated.

The Game continued, and was won, and your group was united in victory, and you considered that maybe, maybe this was the moment.

But you saw how he looked at the Seer, and you hesitated.

A Demon came, and everything you had worked so hard to achieve fell apart like broken glass, and you thought that maybe, maybe this was when you would finally do it.

But you hesitated, for no reason at all.

Things begin to happen, and your Moirail goes to stop a madman’s rampage, and you follow, because you can’t leave him in the lurch like that. You find him dead, and when you try to seek revenge, you are defeated.

As you lay dying, near the Moirail who had always been there for you, your last thoughts are of your soulmate, and you, and the Truth that has just occurred to you.

You are the Rogue, and you are supposed to make your own Path, but you hesitated. In the end, you let Fear dictate your Path, and so you were never given the chance to realize your Destiny.

Purrhaps, if you had said something, just once, he might have loved you back.

Purrhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor, poor Nepeta.


	35. The Seer of Heart

You are the Seer of Heart, and you think that maybe you understand.

You’ve always been in tune with the emotions of others. It comes easy to you; recognizing the lilt of a tone, the quirk of an eye, the dimple of a cheek, and a thousand other little signs for what they were.

Even over text, you’re good at figuring people out. You’re well known for ferreting out when people are mad, or scared, or sad, or just bursting with news they want to say.

You like knowing that; you’re the girl who knows, and it makes you happy.

But then there’s the Boy.

He’s not so easy to read. He acts mad when he’s happy, and happy when he’s depressed, and depressed when he’s angry, and he never seems to decide on any one set of emotional quirks before abandoning them and picking new ones. He either has an extremely good hold of his own emotions and personality, or he’s just very, very random; either way, he’s a goofy, moody, unruly, fiery little ball of mystery.

You’ve been in love with him since the start.

But you haven’t told him that.

You’ve been trying to build up the courage, but the same mystery that draws you to him makes it difficult. It’s a pain, really.

When Sburb comes, and you are given your Title, it makes sense. You’re good at that, after all.

But, as it came to pass, it gave you more than just a Title. It gave you power.

It gave you the ability to SEE.

What you could figure out through analysis and knowledge, now you know intuitively. The emotions of your friends open themselves even further to you, like a book, like a story, and you Understand.

And with Understanding comes heartbreak.

Because you see into the heart of the Boy (the Rogue, now), and see that he has love in his heart.

But not for you.

And to your infinite dismay, you cannot see who his heart burns for.

Heartbroken, you find the Bed. Lovesick, you learn about Godhood. Seeing a chance to expand your power, to see who he truly loves, you take your life on the Bed. A dagger in the heart, like a Shakespeare play; to sleep, perchance to dream.

And you Rise.

And with your Rise you feel the truth; he loves another girl. The Witch.

You find her asleep, and in your sorrow you consider taking drastic measures. With her death, the Rogue would, perhaps, learn to love you. With her gone, your greatest dream may well come true.

You stand above her, dagger in hand.

You put it away.

She awakes to see you there, crying. You see in her heart that she loves him too. Neither one of them knows that the other feels as they do, and if you walked away now, they might forever remain star-crossed, and never find each other.

You tell her he loves her. You tell her to tell him, before she loses the chance forever.

You leave.

You are the Seer, and you think that you understand. Your fate is to know the Hearts of others, and to know your own, but to be forever unable to change yours for the better.

Your Heart is filled with Sorrow.

But that is the way the Story goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to SilverKunama, who wrote the original version of this and graciously allowed me to rewrite it for my series!


	36. The Knight of Heart

You are the Knight of Heart, and your Title confuses you.

Not the Heart part, that part makes sense. But you? A Knight? It makes no sense.

You’re just a typical girly-girl, after all. You like to knit, and you like baking, and you hate bugs, and you’re pretty sure you couldn’t be less of a Knight if you tried.

You’ve spent your life doing quiet things, calm things, things that won’t threaten to explode or melt or light on fire. You like silence, and the rain, and the smell of flowers, and you’re pretty sure that Sburb is the worst thing to ever happen to you.

A game where you’re forced to fight for your life, forced to use violence to get stronger so you can use MORE violence, and in the end, the whole game is based around killing and death and battle, and it makes you afraid.

But your friends are doing alright. They seem much more prepared than you are, really. They’re Mages and Thieves and Rogues and even a Maid (though you think maybe you should have gotten the Maid title, personally), and they love their Titles, and their powers, and their weapons, and maybe Sburb is made for people like them, kids who are way too old for their own good but still very, very young.

Even your Heir is prepared for this all, and he’s the most gentlemanly person ever.

You will say this for Sburb; being able to meet the love of your life for the first time in person was absolutely amazing. He was exactly as gentlemanly and charming and maybe just a shade on the goofy side, and you love him to bits.

The two of you stick near each other most of the time, and you feel like you can’t get enough of him. You start to work on your planet’s puzzles, and maybe this part of the game isn’t so bad, especially with your Heir protecting you from baddies and creatures while you figure things out.

But you still don’t know why you’re the Knight. It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Not until the two of you are ambushed.

There are dozens of them, suddenly, and you are stricken with fear. Your Heir isn’t.

The Heir fights them off, and he looks amazing, like a true Knight would look like, but it isn’t enough. The Heir hasn’t yet come into his own, not truly, and he is being overwhelmed, slowly, but he still fights.

And you do nothing but watch, paralyzed by fear and your own insecurities.

Until one of the imps brings up a strange bow, and aims it at the Heir’s unprotected back.

Thoughts run through your head, of unwise prototypings and poisoned arrows, and the sight of the Heir, unknowing of the danger behind him, and you move.

The imp lets the arrow fly, but it finds your chest, not the Heir’s.

Pain blossoms through you, and everything begins to ache and burn and heave, unnatural poisons and burning blood and a dark, slick arrow, and all you see is the blur of a familiar face twisted in rage as he annihilates the remaining attackers.

You feel him pick you up (and it hurts so very, very much), and he places you down (and the stone under you feels strangely familiar, a comfort through the burn of the poison) and he kisses you on the head and apologizes through his tears, but through it all there’s a strange sort of accomplishment in your mind.

For a moment, you were a Knight. It makes you happy.

You are the Knight, and as you die you comfort yourself with a Truth; that being a Knight is not all Swords, or Skill, or Armor, or even Battle. Sometimes, all it takes to be a Knight is to be willing to Sacrifice.

You saved him, and you can die happy.

And when you Rise up, it’s like going to Heaven.


	37. The Maid of Heart

You are the Maid of Heart, and you’re pretty fed up with this crap.

Seriously.

You get that you’re a pretty caring person, and that you’re easy to talk to, and that you know how to keep a secret, and that maybe you’re just really approachable, but you did NOT ask to somehow become the relationship therapist of your circle of friends. It was just sort of a thing that happened.

But the fact that even Sburb of all things _told_ you that you’re the designated therapist of the team? That’s pretty insulting.

But you don’t tell people that, of course. You just listen as the Knight complains about her unrequited crush on the Heir, who’s confiding in you about his unrequited crush on the Witch, who might have feelings for the Page, who’s been trying to woo the Thief, who is having the problems of her life trying to get the Rogue, who is completely blind because of his focus on the Sylph, who is really just having problems all around and its complicated okay?

You have a whiny bunch of friends.

But you listen, because life kind of sucks for all of you and all you’ve got is each other, anyway, so you might as well make sure that life is as easy on them as possible. If that means being the one to tidy up their relationship problems, well, fine.

But you don’t have to like it. It’s not like you’re made of heart or somethiwait that was bad ignore that.

So you do what you can. It’s hard, though, when everyone’s got an unrequited crush on someone else. The emotional runaround is giving you more exercise than fighting the imps! It’s like you’re a bunch of thirteen year olds or somethiwait you are all thirteen.

But you poke and you prod, and some people get over crushes and others have theirs realized and others decide that maybe they aren’t looking for love right now because the whole end of the world thing is maybe sort of more important.

Bah. If there’s one thing you’ve learned, it’s that not even the apocalypse is enough to deter teenagers from romance related shenanigans.

Things start to stabilize after a bit. A few fights brew up here and there, and as you break them up you find yourself glad that you’ve risen up your echeladder as quickly as you have (because killing imps is a great stress reliever, as it turns out), because otherwise there wasn’t much chance of you being able to do what you’re doing.

But you’re tired. Tired of always being on the outside, always apart, of being chained to the job, the role, of making sure your own team doesn’t implode from under you.

You’d like to have some teenaged romance related shenanigans yourself, dammit all.

So, one day, when you come upon the Page working on his own quest, you pull him up and give him a big smooch.

Not because you had a crush on him or anything. You just thought that maybe you should stir things up a bit.

You are the Maid, and you are bound by the Chains of your position. But hey, with a little effort and a few stupid moves, you can Break Free.

You’re pretty sure this is a step in the right direction.


	38. The Sylph of Heart

You are the Sylph of Heart, and you are very, very tired.

The destruction of your home. The coming of Sgrub. The death of your lusus. All of these weigh on your heart like an anchor, but the worst, you think, is your Title, and the power it gives you.

Ever since you entered the Game, your mind has been filled with emotion. Little of it is your own.

There’s grief, all around; the air is tinged with it, like raindrops on a window.

There’s fear, making the earth reek of it, fouling up your nose at every turn.

There’s hate, true black hate, burning and dark.

There’s anger, explosive and uncontrollable, and this is what truly unifies your team; every one of them is angry.

But in a few, there’s something else. Lighter than air, softer than the breeze, and you yearn for it the most.

Of all the emotions you feel, of all the sensations that bleed from your friends into the world, of all the feelings that you have no choice but to feel, it is this lightest one that you want the most.

But it will never be yours.

As you grow, and level, and fight, you find that, with a little bit of effort, you can change the feelings in others. It is always soft, always subtle, but it is there; with focus, the black fire of hate can be cooled into dispassionate calm, the reek of fear can be overcome by the tint of courage, and the explosive force of rage can be set aside, so that peace can work where war could not.

It takes effort, lots of effort, but you begin to change the scene, one little push at a time.

But pushing is hard, and whenever you try to do more than you are capable of, you feel it in yourself, like a pain in your heart. You must abide by the Flow, and though you can affect it, little by little, you cannot force the Flow onto a different path.

You learn this, but you are discontent. Because, despite your growing efficiency, you still cannot bring to you that light, breathy feeling you yearn so strongly for.

He stands before you, and you know he does not see you as anything more but a teammate, and likely a useless one, but you feel lighter than air whenever he is around. And though you try, you cannot shift his feelings into anything… redder.

One day, weighed down by grief, you try again. It does nothing.

He looks at you oddly, seeing the focus in your eyes, his body wary, and you become angry.

You try again, and you put more of yourself into it. Pain blossoms in your chest and his eyes widen in shock momentarily, but still you know he does not feel for you.

The others are looking at you now, wondering what you are doing, why he looks so afraid, and you try once more.

The pain has spread through you, and you grab him by his shirt, lost to the feeling, and you try to force it. Power flows through you, like fire, like darkness, and you know the others feel your desire, your want, because you feel it emanating like a sun into their minds. You push, and your heart feels like it wants to break.

There is nothing in him but fear.

You try again.

And something in you breaks.

You fall to your knees, as your power shatters, permanently destroyed by your own efforts. Your team looks upon you in horror for what you just attempted to do, and you feel nothing but a heavy weight where once you yearned.

You are the Sylph, and your fate is to know your Element, to understand it, to affect it, but never to control it. You were not to force the Flow to your own ends.

But you tried. And in doing so, you have lost.


	39. The Thief of Heart

You are the Thief of Heart, and you aren’t quite sure that’s fair.

Really, Thief is such an underhanded, dastardly sounding Title. You’re pretty certain you aren’t underhanded OR dastardly. You could count on one hand the amount of times you’ve stolen something (usually cookies from the jar. You just couldn’t help it!), and each time you’ve felt horridly guilty.

You usually can’t help but be nice to people, anyway. Sure, some kids called you the wimpy boy for a while, but that changed when you were twelve and hit your growth spurt. You were basically like a sprout! It was nicer after that.

And besides, who cares what a few kids say when you’ve got your own circle of best friends?

Sure, maybe one of them is kind of a jerk, but he’s tolerable enough as long as he isn’t talking about his crush. Then he gets pathetic, to be honest.

And there’s the girl who doesn’t really like anyone, but you think that’s mostly just her being cagey, because she’s usually the one to contact you first, not the other way around.

And perhaps the best/worst of them all, is the Singer.

She’s definitely shy, but she’s funny, and supportive, and doesn’t call you wimpy. You’ve always been the best of friends, but the day you fell in love was the day she sent you a recording of her singing.

The song she was singing would have been sappy and saccharine, but with her voice it became…

Angelic.

From then on you were pretty much as hopelessly in love with her as your friend was. Neither of you guys had much of a chance, the way you saw it, but you were still pretty happy.

Then the Game came around. That changed things.

Survival became something to fight for, instead of something taken for granted. For years, you had lived in safety and contentment, and now you were barely making it by the hour. Your friends were fitting in well, though; the Jerk became the Heir, Cagey became the Witch, and the Singer became the Sylph.

And you became a Thief.

It bothers you, to be honest. It doesn’t fit, and the fact that it doesn’t fit makes you squirm. The Heir is very Heir-like, and the Witch is throwing around magic like no one’s business, and you don’t think that there was any title as fitting as Sylph for the Singer.

But you’ve never done much of anything very Thief-like, and it bothers you a lot. Maybe if you stole something, or maybe had a power, that would make you feel better.

The thought sticks with you for a while. Maybe you’ll have the ability to make people love you or something; Thief of Heart would fit that, right?

Or maybe you could LITERALLY steal Hearts! Fighting the Black Queen would be so much easier if you could just steal her heart right out of her chest. Man, Heart would be an awesome power then!

Alright, maybe that would be a bit much.

Your ruminations are, one day, quite rudely interrupted by the Sylph almost dying. You happen upon her being overwhelmed by an Ogre, and as she’s knocked to the ground you react without really thinking. You might not be a real Thief, but you do have a big Stick, and you’ll be damned if you stand around not using it.

The Ogre slain, the Sylph saved, you end up feeling pretty triumphant. Your feeling of triumph is soon greatly increased when the Sylph stands up and kisses you. For a few seconds, you are obliviously happy.

It deflates, just a little bit, when the Heir suddenly appears, crackling and glowing, with fury in his eyes.

You ask him what’s wrong.

He says you stole his girl.

And even while the Sylph tries to argue that she was never the Heir’s in the first place and that this whole argument is stupid, you can’t help but feel a glow of pride in your chest.

You are the Thief, and you took your Prize, in a strangely roundabout sort of way.

And now your Title fits.

You smile, and heft your Stick. You’ve got a heart full of happy, a fist full of Stick, and a girl full of fiery wrath.

It’s time to show this uppity Heir what for.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one that could have been very, very different; I went through several ideas for it, until I settled on it. Two of those ideas were, in fact, discussed in this chapter; the "making people love you" power seemed too typical of the Thief for me, and the "I TAKE YOUR ORGANS" one would have been funny, but we already had the Mage for teh funniez.
> 
> That didn't keep me from writing this in the "planning document" we have for this story (called, appropriately, the Page of Titles);
> 
> “Well, that was easy,” said the Thief of Heart, holding the heart of the Black Queen in his hand. “I guess you could say that I... broke her heart. *puts on sunglasses*”


	40. The Bard of Heart

You are the Bard of Heart, and you’re afraid.

When Sburb comes, you feel like it cheated you. The Bard of Heart, it called you, and with that name came power.

But your power, the legacy that the Game deigned to grant you, was useless.

The Bard of Heart, it called you, and the Game told you to follow the Rhythm of the Heart.

And every second of every hour of every day, you hear the roaring Beat of your Heart in your ears.

With every action you feel the blood pulse under your skin. With every word you feel it flow. With every thought it beats. You feel your heartbeat like a metronome.

This is the power that Sburb told you to use. This is the power that it decided you could use to win the Game.

You feel cheated.

But to let the others know, to complain, would be a disservice. When every battle leaves your Knight sicker and wasting, you know you cannot complain. When your Seer bursts into tears with every, uncontrolled vision, you know you cannot complain. When your Rogue is broken down, laid low by grief, you know you cannot complain.

You can only fight.

And you do fight. The Game granted you a power, useless as it may be. And so, in trade, you are given nothing else. You have no fearsome strength to wield with. You have no boundless speed to run with. You have no infinite intelligence to plan with.

Only a heartbeat and a blade.

And soon, you have fear.

Fear begins to haunt your every movement. Fear colors your voice. Fear lurks in the back of your mind, ever vigilant, ever whispering.

And it picks the worst time to strike.

The four of you against the Queen. It seems impossible, and yet, they had already faced the impossible in getting here in the first place. Perhaps this challenge can be surmounted, as well.

She quickly proves otherwise.

You fight, but the four of you are simply not enough, and you begin to fall, one by one. By some strange twist of fate, you are the last to fall. Your sword breaks in your hand, and you fall to your knees.

Bleeding blood and tears, you look and see your team, your friends, lying very, very still upon the ground, as the blood pools around them. That might be their chests moving with each breath. It may just be your imagination.

She stands before you, cold, cunning, arrogant, and fear makes you hesitate.

She slaps you. Another insult Sburb lays upon you. You fall to the ground, and there is nothing but blood and fear.

And your heartbeat in your ears.

And it’s strange. You want to die; it’s pulling you, even now, to just let go. But your heartbeat still rings in your ears, strong and loud.

And maybe that’s the point. As long as your heart is still beating, you’re alive. And if you’re alive, then all is not lost.

You are the Bard, and you must follow the Rhythm. And though fear clouds your mind, and your body wants to die, and your friends lie out of reach, your Heart still Beats.

And as long as that’s true, you can fight.

You stand, and smile.


	41. The Heir of Heart

I am the Heir of Heart. And to those of you who observe, I have only two requests.

For my first request, I would ask that you listen.

From my early days, I knew I was meant for great things. There was no specific cause for this knowledge. Clouds of pictures did not reveal themselves in my dreams, and dark whisperings did not haunt my nightmares. Towers of gold and amethyst never appeared in my dreamscape.

My surety was more ambient than that. It was more of a vague feeling, having no causes with which to verify, but still undeniably true for all of that.

I would do great things.

I was right, in the end.

As I grew, I discovered a love of gardening. When possible, my Mother would bring any plant she could get her hands on, so that I could have something new to take care of. She was proud of her Daughter, her green-thumbed progeny.

As I grew, I discovered a love of animals. I raised small creatures, simple creatures, and cared for them as best I could. I raised chickens, but never for eating; these were my pets, my charges, and they were mind to care for.

As I grew, I discovered a love of my friends. Every one of them, I loved in my own unique way. They might never have understood the depths of it, but I did. And I cared for them in the same way I cared for my plants and my animals; I nurtured them, healed them, and did everything I could to bring the best out of them.

I loved everything, in my own, naïve way. Everything that moved and everything that breathed and everything that reached for the sun, I loved with all of my heart.

When Sburb came, my world ended.

Sburb is a monstrosity. It’s a vile Machine, a vicious Process dedicated to creating through complete destruction, and the only way to succeed seemed to be through war and death and blood.

My world was gone, but my love still remained. I would not fight.

As long as it moved, and breathed, and reached, I couldn’t help but love it.

Somehow, that was enough.

The creatures, the constructs of the horrific Machine that were sent to hurt us, didn’t attack me. They didn’t want to. They came to me, and I protected them.

When these sad creatures failed in the purpose they were given, when Imps and Ogres and Basilisks stopped fighting us altogether, Derse sent its own agents after my friends.

My friends protected themselves, but they knew how I felt, how I was, and they did not kill. My friends loved me as deeply as I loved them, in the end.

The Derse agents were fought to a standstill, overcome with almost simplistic ease, but mercy was had. And with mercy came a realization in their eyes.

They, too, followed me, because they saw in me my Goal.

To win the Game in my own way. Through Peace, not through War. Through Life, not through Death.

Envoys were sent to Queens, and negotiations started. A first in the history of the Medium, perhaps, but somehow, I was heeded.

Slowly, but surely, things changed.

It took time, but we Players were young, and those of the Medium were near ageless. Time, and words, and a determination to succeed.

And it happened. I had done the unthinkable. The Royals of Prospit met the Royals of Derse, and an alliance was formed.

Our New World would be for us all, not merely for those who Play.

With time, we could unravel the secrets of the Game. With time, we could create our World.

With Time, we might have succeeded.

But He came. A Cancer. An Archagent.

He found me when I had no others to fight at my side, and I knew.

I knew he would never accept peace. He would never accept my ways.

One of use would die today. It was only a matter of choice; him, or me.

All I had to do was take up my power once, and excise him like the tumor he was.

All I had to do was kill. Just once.

I chose not to.

And as I lay dying, I asked for two favors of you, observers. The first was to listen to my tale.

The second is to remember.

...

  
I want you to know the tale of a girl who thought she could change the universe.

I want you to understand the mind of a girl who had nearly accomplished the impossible.

I want you to see the horror of the Game, and the fates of all those who play.

I want you to remember the story of a pathetic girl who loved too dearly.

Remember the Heir of Heart.

Remember the girl who failed.  
   
Remember me.

Please.

   
...

  
 _Please._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So, the first failed Heir. She will not be the last.
> 
> And this, folks? This is part of my headcanon as to why Jack Noir exists. He is the Cancer destined to end any session that goes beyond the paths set for it by the grand, eldritch, unfathomable rules of the Game.


	42. The Intern of Umbrage

You are the Intern of Umbrage, and that TICKS YOU OFF.

It is just SO DAMN STUPID but you can’t really complain about it because then you’re just PROVING IT RIGHT. It’s like, what the hell?

Titles are all about power and destiny and responsibility and yours is basically telling you that you’re supposed to be some sort of supervised trainee in being annoyed.

That, or somehow you’re supposed to be a Prisoner of some sort. You don’t exactly know which definition of Intern it’s going with.

You’d like to say THAT MAKES YOU MAD but once again you’re stopped because you’re in this damn passive-aggressive battle with Sburb to prove it wrong and you’ll be DAMNED if you’re going to lose it.

It’s like, Sburb is already hard enough without dumbass Titles, and you’ve got this absurd one that doesn’t even give you anything, and it’s like what the hell Sburb you suck.

You’re so mad you punch through an Ogre and don’t even notice.

The only way you can figure that you’ll win your battle of wits against the Game is to not be annoyed, something that might be physically impossible for you. It’s always been kind of a thing with you, but Sburb pointing it out like it did sure didn’t help much. It’s like, telling you that not only is this a cliché of yours, but it’s also telling you that you don’t do it well enough!

Or, as you said before, that somehow it’s imprisoning you, but that doesn’t make much sense to you so you’re going to pretend that it’s not that. The idea that it might do such an underhanded thing as to use the uncommon meaning of the word just makes you SO MADwait you’re trying to be calm goddammit you’re so bad at this.

Even your Land mocks you. The Land of Paper and Annoyances is full of these damn gigantic piles of paper listing all of the things that annoy you, every single goddamn thing, and somehow each paper manages to be unique because you’ve never read the same thing twice.

WHY.

WHYYYYYYY.

WWWWHHHHYYYYYYYY.

You find yourself blinded so much by your impotent rage that you keep forgetting where you are. One moment you’re kicking around an imp, the next you’ve pulled yourself out of a rant to find Grist piling up like snow.

Having to run around and pick it up doesn’t help your mood much.

Then, suddenly, you’re holding some sort of weapon called, you kid you not, the Office Worker’s Lament, and that annoys you so much that you kind of overlook the fact that it appears to be more powerful than any other weapon your team has and probably cost thousands of Grist.

The next moment you’re surrounded by consorts cheering something inane about how you saved their world from the Denizen or something, and they’re so annoying it makes you want to KICK SOMETHING.

Suddenly you’re on a platform in front of a door and your friends are all cheering and crying and hugging, and one of them is opening the door, and you’re in some place with grass and trees and you get the strangest feeling that you missed something during your internal monologues.

You are the Intern of Umbrage, and somehow you ranted yourself through the Game, and into your new world.

And all you can think of is how annoying it is that you don’t remember a goddamn thing.

DAMN IT.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one done by special request; I thought this title was hilarious sounding.


	43. The Heir of Embers

I am the Heir.

And Life has taught me a Truth.

The Game was nothing new to me. Betrayal, loss, and death? I had experienced all long before the Game even made itself known to me (and in the end, the Game was far less cruel than Life’s constant pain).

The betrayal of those I thought were friends (but instead were simply playing a simple orange blooded girl for a fool, using her and throwing her to the wolves).

The loss of everything I loved (through flame and ash, the burning smell of feathers and meat and the panicked cries of her lusus trying to reach her but falling to ash and dust in the end, as everything burned around her).

And the death that claimed me through fire (but they thought it would keep her, they thought that Death would stay her revenge, but even the darkness of What Came After couldn’t hold her for long).

They thought that Death would stay my hand, but I have always been a creature of the Flame (and from the embers and ashes of her death she would rise, and her incorporeal hand would lead to an Inferno that would leave all of her enemies as nothing but _ash_ ).

When the Game arrived, it stole everything from those who knew me (and though they were not her friends, they were not her enemies, either; the fires of her enmity were not for them).

But it took nothing from me (for everything had already been taken from her. Betrayal, loss, and death were all she had left).

Not at first, at least.

But later, it found a way to hurt me (to burn her, to give her life once more, to make her rise from the ashes as a Goddess, but to take from her those who in the fires of Sgrub became her friends).

We had almost won, but the Game stole that from us (and in doing so, Life took one more thing from her. Betrayal, loss, and death were, once more, all she had).

Now I drift, alone, alive, and Doomed (but there is a path to be taken, a goal to be reached, a Darkness beyond the Medium through which she can leave and enter other worlds, other universes).

I have a Path to take, and so I have made a decision (a decision forged by flame and ash, a decision formed by the pains and tortures of Life, a decision made in the Inferno).

I am the Heir of Embers (the Phoenix risen from the ashes of defeat, the Goddess who would inflict the Inferno upon all who do not understand, the Herald of the Flames that will come from the endless Embers of her power).

And I have learned a Truth (a Truth to be shared through flame, a Truth to be understood only in the ashes of the end, a Truth that was taught to her by the hellfire of Life).

Listen well, observers (listen closely, all who observe, and heed her words, for they will soon become more relevant than you could possibly imagine).

And understand the Truth.

In the end…

 _**EVERYTHING BURNS.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another request; this one would make a great villain for a full Homestuck story, methinks. I like the change from 1st to 3rd person in every paragraph (and, strangely enough, this is the first time I've done any sort of 3rd person with these titles).
> 
> This one pretty much wrote itself when I thought of the phrase at the end. Everything Burns, indeed.


	44. The Seer of Rage

To See, and in Seeing, Know. That is your Quest.

As a boy, you were well remembered for being annoying. This is, although true, rather a simplified statement. It doesn’t really explain the subtleties of what you knew how to do.

You weren’t annoying by accident. You were the sort who knew exactly how to get under people’s skin, to ferret out those words and phrases and actions that would make people twitch. You got a certain satisfaction out of leaving people red-faced with impotent rage.

You might say that you don’t know why you enjoy it so much, but that would be lying. You do it because you enjoy control, and there is a sense of control in being able to overcome people with their own anger.

Had you grown up normally, this trait might have been trained out of you. Someone, eventually, wouldn’t stop at merely being angry, and would take their anger out on you directly. Had this happened, you may well have let go of this strange compulsion.

But Sburb came, and that changed things.

With Sburb came a Title, and with your Title came Power. The Power to See.

And oh, how wonderful it was. To See the exact things that could drive anything, Imp, Consort, Carapace, even Player into blind rages was intoxicating. This was a dream come true.

You used your power well; as one of the first players in, you tore through the battlefield, through enemies who were too angry to use strategy or tactics, who were too angry to notice trickery and cleverness, and so were easily defeated by you.

But your last player entered something deadly into her own kernelsprite, and in doing so, the nature of the Game changed.

Now, where most creatures were dogs or squids or hard-boiled gangsters, there were now a select few who wore a dark cloak, with reaching, skeletal hands, and a terrible face obscured by a tattered hood. And with these Cloaked Ones came a draining, terrifying aura, an aura that brought their deepest, darkest fears into their minds.

The Cloaked Ones nearly defeated them.

Even you might have succumbed to these monstrous minions, had they not made a critical mistake.

You HATED losing control.

With the fear soon came a boundless, deep rage that scoured the terror from your mind so completely that it seemed never to have existed. And with this Rage came a realization, and you knew you could succeed.

You contacted your players, who hid, stricken with fear, and began to speak. You Saw into their minds, and where the Cloaked Ones pulled every despairing thought to the forefront, you dragged, by force, the thoughts that would make them Angry. Dark shames and forgotten promises, embarrassing failures and hidden weaknesses, you ferreted out and brought to the light.

And in response, one by one, your team began to feel the fires of Rage.

Soon they came out of hiding, like a storm, like a wave, and they Fought. The Cloaked Ones tried to bring them down once more, but the freezing pull of Despair was nothing, nothing at all, to the infinite fires of Rage.

They didn’t stand a chance.

And now you stand, with the Black King in front of you, and his presence hits your team like a hurricane, but you are Fury, and you are not so easily defeated.

You are the Seer, and your Quest is to See, and in Seeing, Know.

And you have always been good at Seeing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is one of my favorites. Gives me chills, reading it now. Which seems kind of strange, to me, but there you go.


	45. The Maid of Rage

To Serve, and in Serving, Endure. That is your Quest.

You live your life in fear.

It’s a sad life to live, but you have become used to it, over time.

The alternative, after all, is unthinkable.

You live in fear of yourself, and so you do everything you can to keep yourself from doing harm.

Your Aunt (your poor, poor Aunt, who tried so hard) raised you for years, and she loved you dearly. But your moods (your Aunt’s word, not yours) were too much for her.

Moods. Such an inconspicuous word. It brings to mind the light annoyance of getting the wrong kind of cheese on your sandwich, or the blatant disrespect shown to a man who thought himself smarter than he really was, or the sudden sadness of finding a beautiful beetle crushed on the ground. It sounded plain. It sounded normal.

Your ‘moods’ were anything but.

Anything could trigger them, and rarely did the same cause strike twice. A brush of a hand against your shoulder, the sight of a shirt on the ground, the smell of eggs slightly burnt; the causes were wide and varied, and often completely harmless.

But then your ‘mood’ kicked in.

At first it seemed simple tantrums. The tears and screams of a girl who desired to show her frustration the only way she knew how; through crying and tearing and yelling.

It quickly proved otherwise.

You had no control. You tried to hard to be sweet and nice and calm, but when it hit you, you had no ability to stop, no ability to slow down. When you were small, this mattered little, but as you grew, and became bigger, stronger, and more capable, your moods changed from annoyances to causes of anger.

The first time you set fire to the apartment, your Aunt brought in specialists.

There were words, a name for the condition your mind was in, but you have forgotten (or perhaps forced it from your mind). You live in a quiet place, now. Calm and peaceful, and when your moods kick in there’s nothing to hurt. And you’re happy, because you never wanted to hurt anything.

You thought maybe you had found peace.

Then the Game came.

With the Game came those who you might have once called friends; children who didn’t have to worry about their own destructive moods, their own anger destroying everything they loved. You hadn’t talked to them in months, but they remembered, and they trusted you still.

You doubted the wisdom of that.

With the Game came a Title. And with a Title came a responsibility. A contract, of sorts.

With the Game came a terror unlike anything you’ve ever known, because you have to submit.

Your moods come more often now, and you have so much more to destroy. So much to be angry at. So much that requires your Fury to annihilate. And in your moods you are elated, because the Game has given you an outlet, a place to empty your Rage at something that deserves it.

Out of your moods, you are terrified. Because you know it won’t be long until something undeserving gets in your way.

It happens. A girl, once a friend, needs your help. You find her. You fight at her side, and together you succeed. In gratitude, she hugs you, and it comes.

This was no mere mercurial 'mood'. This was no mere anger, impotently emptied on apartments or imps or other deserving constructs of the Game.

This was Rage. And you used it to destroy, for no reason, a girl who called you friend.

And through it all, as a part of you tried to stop, tried to slow, you knew that this was necessary.

You destroyed her, and ended her life upon a stone table.

And as she began to Rise, you knew that your Fury directed you for a reason.

You are the Maid, and your Quest is to Serve, and in Serving, Endure.

You’ve never known how to do anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Being Rage, I assume you can see that not many of these are 'happy', persay. *patpats the Maid*


	46. The Prince of Rage

To Accept, and in Accepting, Comprehend. That is your Quest.

Justice is a difficult concept for the young to learn. You realized that as you watched your neighbors go through their spiteful, meaningless little lives, casually harming and maiming and killing without a care in the world.

It is a difficult concept.

But you decided to teach them.

You are Judgment, and they are the Guilty. And soon, they all begin to understand.

Under your Rule, your Iron Fist, they live. Perhaps they do not thrive, but they live, and that is always the first step. They will live until adulthood. That is more than could be said for anywhere else in this harsh, unforgiving world.

No Crime is forgiven. Not theft, not murder, not assault. You keep watch, and with your powers you keep them in check.

They may hate you, it’s true. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they accept.

What matters is that they comprehend.

Then the Game comes, and everything changes.

Your subjects are gone, destroyed by the Game’s cruel initiation. It gives you a title in return, and you feel as if perhaps it suits you. A Prince, a Royal, meant to use his wrath as a tool in the name of Justice.

And Justice is direly needed here.

You have never met your team in person, but you have long known them, and they are without guidance, without integrity, and without being there in person you have been unable to show them the way.

So you do.

This is no time for the petty squabbles of your race, so in your fury you smash them down as they attempt to bicker and argue. Nothing of this sort shall be permitted.

They attempt to rise against your rule, and you, in your infinite Judgment, attempt to put them in their place.

But they still try, and you realize that more serious measures may be needed.

So, when one comes against you again, you decide that all eleven members of your team are not necessary.

The loss of one is acceptable.

So, you pass your Judgment, and she dies at your hand.

And with this act, that should have made them submit, every one of them comes before you.

The problem with being a Judge is that, before, you were on a level far, far above any other of your race. But here, you face a team of equals, united against you.

Even your Fury is like a wave crashing against a cliff; useless.

As you die, you finally realize.

You are the Prince of Rage, and your Quest is to Accept, and in Accepting, Comprehend.

And it wasn’t until now that you understood that Judgment was never yours to give.


	47. The Bard of Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be the fourth of the Rage classes, but somehow I missed putting it up. It is now reordered correctly; thanks for bearing with me!

To Sing, and in Singing, Dance. That is your Quest.

You’ve never been one to sing, really, or dance. You like watching the world go by, though. There’s beauty in the world, like the sunrise at the end of the night or the sea lapping gently against the coast, or the lights in the eyes of the creatures around your home.

There’s beauty in it, and watching it all go by helps to keep the Song at bay.

You can’t remember a time when the Song hasn’t been there. It isn’t music, really, but it’s kind of a Pulse, a Beat, and it scares you senseless. You try not to think of it, and so you watch the world go by.

Sopor helps; it muffles the Song, smothers it, and for a long time you forget. You watch the world go by, and everything is peaceful, even if it isn’t always happy.

Then the Game happens, and everything changes. You feel like maybe that’s the sort of thing a lot of kids in your position say, but the words feel right, so you keep them.

The Game goes on, and for a while things are exciting but not actually much different. The Song is still smothered and muffled, and only in a few special times does it Pulse and Beat through the Sopor. You don’t really remember those times well, and you think that’s probably a good thing.

Memories, man, how do they even work? Miracles, that’s how.

But some bad things happen, and you’re all stuck in a strange building out in the middle of nowhere, and for a while it’s kind of nice. It’s peaceful, in a way, calm and still. Nothing really happens, but that’s okay.

Then you run out of Sopor.

You don’t really worry about it too much. You spent sweeps of your life without eating Sopor, and the strange Song stayed down. You’ll keep it down this time, too.

But it’s different this time.

It starts out slow, but soon you start to feel the effects of withdrawal.

You try and sit it out, but your head is hurting too MoThErFuCkInG MuCh to think, and everything hurts. You feel sick and strong, somehow at the same time, like you want to hurl and smash something, and underneath the pain and the illness and the confusion is a steady, rhythmic Beat. It’s the Beat of your Blood, the Pulse of your Destiny, the Truth of Who You’re Supposed To Be.

It Pulses and Beats, and through the pain you begin to Laugh.

And in Laughing, you’ve found your Song.

You decide that maybe, maybe it’s time to show these motherfuckers (THESE UNWORTHY MOTHERFUCKERS) the Truth.

Because with your Laughter you have found your Song, and with your Clubs in hand you’ve decided that it’s time to show them your Miracles.

You are the Bard of Rage, and your Quest is to Sing, and in Singing, Dance.

And this is going to be a Dance to remember.

honk.

HONK.


	48. The Knight of Rage

To Fight, and in Fighting, Overcome. That is your Quest.

You don’t like lacking control. You don’t like a lot of things, of course, but losing control is one of those things. You’ve done it, many times, and every time you regret.

You don’t like regretting.

You cannot allow anger to dictate what you do, but it seems like you can’t help it. You don’t really think; you just react. This sense of immediate reaction might do you well if you had the sense to not pull the stupidest, most oaflike moves every time it happened.

But that’s what happens. Some local kid insults you and you don’t even blink, you just move, and you’ve got your fist in his face and he’s on the floor, but three others are on you like a flash and you’re overcome because you were too angry to do anything but charge ahead.

You go home a wreck, bruised and bleeding and black and blue. You’ve gone home like this a hundred times before. And as she fixes you up, your Sis tells you the same thing she tells you every time.

Anger isn’t the problem. Control is the problem. Control your anger, or it will control you.

Familiar words. They’ve ground themselves into your brain, and you think of them every single goddamn time, but you still can’t do it. You can’t help it. You’ve never had control.

When the Game comes, you wonder if that will change.

As it turns out, yes and no.

The Game takes away almost everything, but it gives you a lot. It gives you a weapon, it gives you a goal, and it gives you enemies, enemies that you don’t mind destroying, not one bit.

But it doesn’t give you control, and you resent it for that. You’ve never had control, but you had hoped that this might have given it to you. So close, but so far.

You play the Game, and you know you’re winning, in theory. You fight and you climb and eventually you stand, beside your friends, beside your team, and ahead of you is your last obstacle.

The Black King.

He’s more than just a figure, more than just a ruler, more than just an obstacle. By definition he should be only somewhat affected by the prototypes, and still recognizable under its changes, but something has gone horribly wrong here, and he’s like a void, like a storm, like a hurricane, like your own dark eyes burning back into you. You look at him and you see something of yourself, of lack, of Rage, and you snap.

You fight, and you know you’re losing, you know that even with the others behind you, you can’t do a thing, not like this, because your Rage is controlling you.

But then you watch him strike, not you, but the friend at your side, and it all changes.

That isn’t quite true. You are still enraged; you are still consumed by your Element, by the thing that defines you. But it crystallizes in you; what once burned and tore and screamed at you now hums like a tightened bowstring, coils like a viper waiting to strike, holds its breath like you’re waiting to jump.

So you jump right in, letting yourself fly, letting yourself strike, and the Rage becomes cold, still, and tranquil.

When you strike next, it isn’t with the wild, uncontrolled blows of Fire, of Flame and Heat and Burning.

It’s with the calculated, icy assaults of an arrow in flight, of a viper’s hate, and your cold, alien Fury is far, far more than any meager King can withstand.

You fight, and as you do you realize that you have found your Control.

You are the Knight of Rage, and your Quest is to Fight, and in Fighting, Overcome.

And the King will fall by your hands.


	49. The Mage of Rage

To Use, and in Using, Destroy. That is your Quest.

You’ve never been much of anything special. You’ve always been the normal one out of the group, the sane one, the stable one. You pride yourself in it; yours is a race of violence and fury, and in staying stable, staying sane, you’ve made yourself a rock, a stone on which those you call friends can stand.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that Sgrub would take that all away.

The Game gave you a Title, gave you a purpose, and you don’t understand why it’s decided to give you this. You are sane, you are stable, you are composed.

So why did it take that all away?

You entered the game like every other one of your friends; frightened, panicked, without understanding. But, when you faced your first enemy, your first challenge, that all changed.

You awoke, minutes later, to find the Imp in pieces, ripped apart by bare hands. You looked at your hands and saw them covered in the strange, tar-like substance that coursed through their veins.

An hour later more Imps found you, sitting, staring at your hands in shock, and when you looked up you saw them surround you, and you blacked out again.

When you came to, you were surrounded once more by carnage.

This was the way you played. You tried, so desperately, to keep it from happening, but inevitably it would. All who faced you were torn apart, ripped to bloody shreds, and your only consolation was that you couldn’t remember it, not one second. Your rages were uncontrollable, but at least you didn’t have to see it.

You try to let this comfort you. It doesn’t.

Your leader, such as she is, tells you to come and help her. You resist. You don’t want her, or any of the others, to witness you at your worst. She insists. You go to her.

You find her, and the two of you take a good long look at each other. The two of you look so alike. You’re wearing a dress, and you’ve kept your hair long, where she’s shortened hers, and moved from dresses into armor, but you are alike in the eyes; you are both afraid. Afraid and trying to deny it.

The both of you go forth, and at first it seems alright. But then the Ogre comes, and with a desperate cry you feel the Rage take you once more.

You wake up. You’re covered in cuts and bruises and blood, but most of it isn’t yours. There’s the quickly disappearing remains of the Ogre and its minions around you, as Grist starts to appear. And ahead of you is your leader, with terror in her eyes.

Yours is a violent race, but there are limits. There are lines, not to be crossed.

She just watched you cross it.

In her eyes is fear, as before, but now that fear, that stark terror, that deep horror, is because of you.

You turn away, knowing that your friend will never look at you the same way.

You leave her land, and go back to yours, with despair in your heart.

You are the Mage of Rage, and your Quest is to Use, and in Using, Destroy.

And your Rage will destroy everything, in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first Rage class I thought up.


	50. The Sylph of Rage

To Kneel, and in Kneeling, Submit. That is your Quest.

You wonder what crime you must have committed, what sin you must have embraced, to have been cursed with this punishment. Perhaps it was in another life. With Sburb, anything is possible.

You were once happy. You were content. Life had given you everything, and you knew enough of the tragedies of life to be happy with what you were given. Fulfillment was not a gift that Life gave lightly, after all.

But perhaps you did not treasure it enough. Perhaps you had somehow slighted your Father, your friends, your life, and in doing so, lost it.

You can’t think of what you did, but you must have done something to deserve this.

The Game began, and with it, you lost your world. But you had your family, your friends, your life, and so you began to think that maybe it was enough.

But the Game began to take them, as well, and it took them through you.

At first it was only against the Enemies, the creatures that the Game defined as Against You, and with them you didn’t mind; these were monsters, mindless, meaningless, and so you could allow yourself to use the Rage the game granted you against them.

When it turned to the inhabitants of Derse, you were wary, but they had, time and again, tried to kill you, and perhaps this was meant to be. So you allowed yourself to wield your Rage against them.

When you were guided to Prospit, you began to rebel, but the Rage took you where it would. The Game had decided that they must die, and die they did, torn apart by teeth and hands and a Fury that tore at them through you, and you were powerless to stop it.

And it didn’t stop at Prospit.

Your best friend was the first to fall, and all you can ask is why. She falls with fear and betrayal in her eyes, and all you can ask is why.

Soon they all fall, dead by your hand, dead by Fury’s hand.

Soon the universe dies, by your hand, and as reality comes crashing down around your ears you wonder if, perhaps, this was always meant to be.

Perhaps some Destinies are never meant to succeed.

Perhaps some Titles were never meant to bring success.

You are the Sylph of Rage, and your Quest is to Kneel, and in Kneeling, Submit.

And you hope that your next life will be happier.


	51. The Page of Rage

To Learn, and in Learning, Grow. That is your Quest.

The Page of Rage, the game calls you.

Hah. What a joke.

You couldn’t be less rage-like if you tried. Bitter, perhaps, but even that only shows up when you’re alone, and no one is there to witness it. When there ARE people around, you freeze up. You try to be happy, and the smile freezes on your face. You try to speak, and all that comes out is a squeaky stutter. You try to _do_ , and every time you fail.

Page of _Rage_? Page of Fear, more like. Page of Failure. Page of Cowardice. Too weak to do anything right, too fearful to take a step, and too withdrawn to do anything but be bitter about it.

Even over chat, over the blind communication of the internet, you couldn’t overcome it.

What makes the Game think you can?

Obviously it must be torturing you. No other answer quite makes sense. It throws you into this… this epic conflict, this grand Quest, and even hands you the tools to change, and all you can do is stutter and freeze.

And through it all you know your friends are a little bit disappointed in you.

So they change their plan. At first they had tried to stick together, meeting each other as soon as they were in the game, but you were the last, and they saw that you held them back. So they split up.

And you were alone. The bitterness came back.

Self-hate and guilt and a deep, dark bitterness accompanied your every step. It built and built, as you wandered your land, and you thought that you might break down and cry.

When you finally _did_ break, it sure as hell wasn’t in tears.

The imp was taunting you. Names, gestures, rhymes, all meant to hurt you. And for once, you found that you were in too deep in your own self-loathing to feel afraid of this miniscule thing.

You smashed it.

And with that came a sort of freedom.

You searched, and found more of them, and upon them you reigned down the results of years of fear, years of loathing, years of bitterness, and before you they fell like wheat.

The bitterness began to change.

You climbed the echeladder and didn’t even notice. You travelled the planets, not bothering to talk to your teammates, but you found one of them entirely on accident anyway. The cloying, claustrophobic fear began to return, even when you saw that the friend was in danger, surrounded and weak, but you forced it to give way into the loathing that gave you strength.

And as you tore through your enemies, saving your friend, you noticed that, for once, the loathing and the hate weren’t directed at yourself. Right now, it was all against these creatures.

Your friend decided to follow you, and you allowed it, even though the fear was only just kept constantly at bay by the hate and loathing.

You met the others, in time, and they too decided to follow you, as you tore across a Game that you had decided was more deserving of the near limitless wells of loathing than you were.

And before long, even the loathing had distilled into something a little more pure.

Denizens and monsters died, felled by a well of Fury given to you by long, hard years of Fear.

And when you faced a Queen, there was Fear. But it was all swept away by your Rage.

And you realize that maybe, your title wasn’t that much of a joke.

You are the Page of Rage, and your Quest is to Learn, and in Learning, Grow.

And you have learned that Rage can be a sort of courage.


	52. The Rogue of Rage

To Change, and in Changing, Succeed. That is your Quest.

You have to make a choice.

You’ve never had choice. You’ve always been ruled, been ordered, been chained. Life keeps you under its hold, iron-tight and icy-cold.

A melodramatic statement, perhaps, but true enough in its way.

In truth, it wasn’t quite Life, but instead she who _gave_ you Life that kept you under her hold, and it wasn’t even truly on purpose.

Your Mother was an angry woman, constantly seeking someone in life who would hold themselves to the standard she demanded, and constantly finding them lacking. Her life was ruled by anger, and it seemed natural that you were ruled in much the same way.

Anger at a life that seemed to lack meaning, anger at the lack of people who could provide it, and especially anger at each other; you held a lot of that.

Your sole solace was the contact you held, however tenuous, with a few people of like souls, a few children who knew they were more, a few kindred spirits who understood.

Perhaps that would have been enough, in time. But then the Game ruined it all.

The Game takes nearly everything from you, but it gives you your friends.

You can’t find it in yourself to give the Game anything but rage, back. But the Game is nothing, _nothing_ if not subtle, and it knows your anger is your greatest weakness.

And it uses it against you.

Every time you strike against the Game, twisting its rules, bending its laws, breaking its chains, you find yourself stymied, struck against, once again held in the icy-cold, iron-tight grasp of the Game. And all you can find in yourself is Rage.

Your friends understood, once, but you have ignored them in your quest, your obsession.

You continue, and even as hundreds of constructs die at your hands, and secrets show themselves, and the End even seems within your grasp, you know the Game is holding its greatest hand against you.

You are sent a message from someone you once called a kindred spirit. It has an ultimatum.

 _Come back. Please._

You see the truth in the words. This is the last chance you have to turn back to your friends. But they intend to win the Game, and you intend to _break_ it.

You have to make a choice.

And when you fall, killed by the ones you once called friend, you realize that in your Fury, you made the wrong choice.

You are the Rogue of Rage, and your Quest is to Change, and in Changing, Succeed.

But you have let your Fury guide your actions, rather than making your own Way.

And in doing so, you have truly lost everything.


	53. The Witch of Rage

To Command, and in Commanding, Win. That is your Quest.

A strange thing, this Game. It operates on a scale above and beyond any program you’ve ever seen. The coding for it was monstrously difficult to put together, and you’ve discovered that the code was only a fragment, the barest part of what actually made the Game tick. The Code was nothing more than a gateway, an entry pass, a way for players to earn their way into the Game, and thus into their Ultimate Reward.

You had hoped, upon putting together the code, that you might understand it well enough that you could cheat. After all, the most fun part of any game was learning how to cheat it, was it not?

But the Game is far, far more than a simple program, and it will not be cheated as easily as you hoped.

You enter the Game, in fire and fury, but the Game has another card to play.

When you come in, you are _blindsided_ , stricken by an alien, intense fury that _does not belong_ , and it takes all you have to bring yourself under control.

The first time an Imp shows its miserable little face you tear it into bite sized pieced before it can even blink.

And it is then that you make a decision.

Because this _will not do_.

You pull yourself together, barely, and formulate a plan. Because, despite the complexity of the Code, you have discovered one thing you _can_ do.

And then you let yourself go, encompassed by the Rage.

Minutes, hours, days go by, and you tear through forces beyond your comprehension, as you seem almost blinded by the red haze of fury, the shaky intensity of adrenaline, and the cold, alien hate that infuses your every movement.

Your friends stay out of your way, just as planned. They don’t need to see what happens next.

You find yourself on a cliff, looking down at the strange stones below with nothing but Rage in your mind. You turn, and you see him.

A figure of black stands before you (and he is no imp, no consort, no player, but instead one of the inhabitants of Derse), and he’s got hate in his grin, spades in his eyes, and a well-worn knife in his hand. You bare your teeth, and the two of you clash.

It takes time; your opponent is skilled and persistent, and your own Rage keeps you going faster and stronger by the second, but soon it ends exactly as you planned.

With his knife in your heart.

And as you fall backwards, off of the cliff on which you fought, your mind begins to clear of its haze. The Game thought itself uncheatable, unhackable. But you didn’t search for power or hidden knowledge or the truth. You simply made it so that a powerful enemy would have exactly the chance he was looking for.

You fall, and your body breaks on the strange stone below, and as your blood fills the cracks of the strangely marked stone, you let go.

You are the Witch of Rage, and your Quest is to Command, and in Commanding, Win.

And as you Rise Up, you know that you have Won.


	54. The Thief of Rage

To Take, and in Taking, Possess. That is your Quest.

And in the end, you’re going to have it all.

It’s almost strange, how much the Game has given you. You’ve always yearned for higher than your caste (your rust-red blood sings in you every day, taunting), and your deviousness has gained the attention of many a high blood who thought to use you (use your skill with a rifle, your silver tongue, your unusual ruthlessness and viciousness even for your kind).

But in the end, you only used them.

It only made sense that eventually one of them would find a way to bite back (blood everywhere, a torn throat and missing fingers and one feline eye staring dully at you in death).

You were left without a home, without a lusus, without a life.

And somehow, you were Chosen.

Chosen by a group that sought to use your skills, who thought you harmless to them (a broken man, missing a home and fingers and a voice but still with skill to bring to bear), and you came along.

They gave you fingers (dull metal and lifeless circuits) and a voice (monotone and static, no longer silver but iron instead), and they gave you a job; help them win the Game.

And so the Game changed your life.

It gave you a Title, and with it came Power.

And oh, what a power it was.

To steal the Rage from your enemies, to see them wilt before you as their drive, their motivation, even their _fear_ was taken from them; to walk up to an enemy that had been rendered harmless, broken, and take their life with the sweep of one sharp claw. That was your Power.

And so you made a Plan.

The Game went smoothly. Your superiors (and they made it quite clear they were superior) ascended through the Echeladder, and together they defeated the Denizens.

Eventually, they stood before the Black Queen.

Soon after, they stood over her corpse, triumphant.

They stood before a Door, and prepared to achieve their Ultimate Reward.

It was then that you struck.

Your Power drew them in, taking their Rage and their Fury, their Courage, their Drive. You _took_ , and you took until they had nothing left to give. And when all of them sank to the ground, nearly lifeless, you stood before one in particular.

She had been the only one of them to reach Godhood. She, who had ruined you (taken fingers and voice and home and family), kneeled before you.

You gave her a little of herself back. You wanted her to know what came next.

You tore the fingers from your hand, and tore the circuits from your throat, grinning all the while, as she looked on. You wanted her to know that it was never your trigger finger or your silver tongue that made you dangerous.

It was your _Will_.

You tore out her throat with a smile on your face. This was Justice. She would remain dead.

You entered the Door to your Ultimate Reward, and left behind the lifeless remnants of a group that had thought you broken.

You are the Thief of Rage, and your Quest is to Take, and in Taking, Possess.

And you have it All, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trolls are so much FUN to write!


	55. The Heir of Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I forgot to post one of the Rage classes at the right time; the Bard of Rage is now in place, at chapter 47. I also had some problems formatting and posting this one, so I had this chapter double posted for a bit. Thanks, tinaun, for catching that! More info below.

\--------------------------------------To Rise. ---------- TO FALL.--------------------------------------

\--------------------------That is my Quest. ---------- THAT IS MY JUDGMENT.--------------------------

\------------------------Simple, yet concise. ---------- SWIFT, YET SEVERE.------------------------

\-----------------------------That is my way. ---------- THAT IS MY OATH.-----------------------------

\----------------It has always been my way ---------- MY VERDICT TO ALL WHO STAND BEFORE ME.----------------

\-------------------Complexity wastes time. ---------- I WILL DESTROY ALL OF MY ENEMIES.-------------------

\----------------Complications waste effort. ---------- I WILL CRUSH ALL OF MY RIVALS.----------------

\----------------Convolutions waste energy. ---------- I WILL ANNIHILATE THE FORCES OF THE GAME.----------------

\----------------------And I will _**NOT**_ waste. ---------- AND I WILL _**NOT**_ LOSE.----------------------

\-----------------------The Game cursed me. ---------- THE GAME BLESSED ME.-----------------------

\---------------------------It gave me Power. ---------- IT GRANTED ME STRENGTH.---------------------------

\--------------------------It stole my Sanity. ---------- IT TOOK MY WEAKNESS.--------------------------

\----------And yet, I will have my revenge. ---------- AND SO, I WILL ATTAIN MY PRIZE.----------

\------The Game took everything from me. ---------- THE GAME GAVE EVERYTHING TO ME.------

\--------------------And so I will _**destroy**_ it. ---------- AND YET I WILL TAKE IT.--------------------

\----------------------Every fruit of its labor. ---------- EVERYTHING IT HAS TO OFFER.----------------------

\-----------------------------I will annihilate. ---------- I WILL POSSESS.-----------------------------

\--With only the barest effort of my mind. ---------- WITH ONLY THE LIGHTEST OF THOUGHTS.--

\-----------------Everything falls before me. ---------- MY ENEMIES TEAR THEMSELVES APART IN MY NAME.-----------------

\--------------------------My Rage manifests. ---------- MY FURY COMES.--------------------------

\-----------------------------It is a Hurricane. ----------IT IS A TEMPEST.-----------------------------

\-----------------It is a Tremor in the Earth. ---------- IT IS A QUAKE IN THE FOUNDATION.-----------------

\---------It is the Flame that consumes All.---------- IT IS THE FIRE THAT WILL DEVOUR EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH.---------

\------------------And with it, I understand. ---------- AND WITH IT, I UNDERSTAND.------------------

\-------------------To See all fall before me. ---------- TO KNOW THE FATE OF ALL.-------------------

\-------To Serve the Fires that burn within. ---------- TO ENDURE THE FURY THAT GRANTS ME MY POWER.-------

\------------To Accept my curse, and use it. ---------- TO COMPREHEND MY BLESSING, AND CONTROL IT.------------

\---------------To Sing the Song of the End. ---------- TO DANCE THE STEPS OF THE FINALE.---------------

\-------To Fight all those who would stand. ---------- TO OVERCOME THE OBSTACLES THAT LIE BEFORE ME.-------

\-------To Use the Game that changed me. ---------- TO DESTROY THE GAME THAT TOOK ME.-------

\------------------------To Kneel before Fury. ---------- TO SUBMIT BEFORE RAGE.------------------------

\------------------------To Learn its Strength. ---------- TO GROW IN ITS POWER.------------------------

\---------------------------To Change my Life. ---------- TO SUCCEED IN MY GOALS.---------------------------

\----------------------To Command my Team. ---------- TO WIN THE GAME.----------------------

\-----------------------------To Take my Prize. ---------- TO KEEP ITS BOUNTY.-----------------------------

\-----------------------------------------To Rise. ---------- TO RISE.-----------------------------------------

\-------------------------And IN Rising, TAKE the VICTORY that IS rightfully MINE.-------------------------

\--------------------------------------------I am THE Heir OF Rage.--------------------------------------------

\--------------------------------------------AND this IS my QUEST.--------------------------------------------

\-------------------------------------------all WILL fall BEFORE me.-------------------------------------------

\-------------------------They will feel my Fury. ---------- THEY WILL FEEL MY RAGE.-------------------------

\---AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO OBSERVE. ---------- For those of you so watch my journey.---

\---------------------------------------Know this. ---------- UNDERSTAND.--------------------------------------

\--------NOTHING SHALL STAND IN MY WAY. ---------- Because I am coming.--------

\-------------And the New World will fear me. ---------- IT WILL COWER BEFORE ME.-------------

\---------------------------------------------------I am FURY.---------------------------------------------------

\---------------------------------------------------I am RAGE.---------------------------------------------------

\---------------------------------------------------I am HERE.---------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a PAIN to format properly; I couldn't figure out how to center it, because AO3 doesn't appear to support that very well. *shrugs*


	56. The Outlaw of Oath

You are the Outlaw, and you’ve broken every Promise you’ve ever made.

Fate exists. You’ve always known that; you’ve seen in in everything, from the moment you knew how to walk, how to listen, how to _see_. From the first time that stranger (your soon-to-be best friend) contacted you nervously, from the first time you heard of the Game, from the first and earliest memory you remember (you, in your Mother’s arms), you knew Fate brought it all together.

And so you knew Fate took it all apart.

Fate gave you a Destiny (long before the Game ever did), and though you’ve fought it, tooth and nail, you are bound to it.

It started so delicately, so slightly. You promised a girl on the street (when you were new and hadn’t made any friends yet) that you’d hold the balloon for her. When the wind picked up and tugged it right out of your hands, you were devastated, and she was more so.

You both were so young, then; things like that mattered. She left in tears, and you didn’t try and play with her anymore. It made you feel too bad.

And so started your Curse. You were an Oath Breaker.

It didn’t matter how small it was. When you gave your Word, it would never, ever be kept. A promise made was guaranteed to fall through, and not by your own choice.

Because you tried. God, you tried. But that letter would never reach the mailbox, that cherished treasure would never leave your hands unbroken, that secret whispered by someone you might have called a friend would never remain hidden. Fate threw your Oaths and your Promises and your Word to the wind, every time.

Was it any wonder that the only friends you made were online?

Perhaps it was because you were careful with them. You never assured them of anything. Never did a promise utter from your lips to them. You were careful.

Then the Game came, and Fate threw you another curveball.

The Game gave you a Title (and oh, you saw the machinations of Fate behind that, as well, because even the Game was a slave to Destiny), and it gave you a purpose; to fight, so that you could win the Ultimate Reward.

The Game named you the Outlaw, he who breaks the Rules of Order, and if that doesn’t fit you (promise-breaker, oath-shatterer) then you don’t know _what_ does.

The Game progresses. Each step is clawed narrowly from defeat by the efforts of your team, and every moment is haunted by the specter of failure, the shadow that throws its pall upon the Game. You cannot fail, your team swore to themselves.

You didn’t, for reasons that are obvious. No need to curse it unnecessarily.

But perhaps that wasn’t enough. Because here you are, standing beside your friends, while your leader tells you the Plan. The Last Plan, in the end; it is all or nothing, from here.

Every person has a part, and when he stands before you to tell you yours, you understand.

To defeat the Queen, they cannot use Force. They have to use Trickery and Cunning. Your leader has a Plan, but it will draw the attention of every enemy in the Medium.

And every other player is required for the Plan.

He stands before you, and you see in his eyes the words he cannot say aloud. And you agree.

You will stand before the vast horde for him.

He asks no promises of success, no oaths of victory.

Instead, he simply tells you to swear that you will come back alive.

You look at your best friend, and you swear. You can almost feel Fate begin its machinations against you.

You are the Outlaw of Oath, and you have broken every Promise you ever made.

Except this one.

And as you stand, victorious, on a battlefield full of Grist, you realize a Truth.

Who better than the Outlaw to break free from the destiny that Fate forced upon him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another special request from the MSPA Forums!
> 
> So, I am officially caught up. Unfortunately, I am going to be doing NaNoWriMo, and will be unable to write any more Titles until AFTER November. I look forward to continuing, though; this will be a GREAT project for me to do between editing of my book!
> 
> So, see below for my notes on the elements, including my thoughts on the elements to come!


	57. The Witch of Hope

What will you do, Witch of Hope?

Until recently, the answer was nothing.

You’ve never had real suffering. You’ve never really had hardship. You’ve never wanted for anything. Strange that now, all of a sudden, you do.

You used to feel like you never had a choice. Your path in life had been set, your fate sealed. Here was your education, here was your life’s work, and there were no choices for you to make. Merely a set of instructions to follow, and everything was nice and controlled. You hated it.

And in the end, you missed it.

It wasn’t until after you installed that damn disc that you understood how much choice you had been given in your old, soft life. Here in Sburb, it was all or nothing, do or die. It was try, or watch your friends die.

In Sburb, Fate truly _was_ sealed, infinite space and circular time winding itself into a Mobius strip of circumstantial simultaneousness and grandfather paradoxes, the long path of universe propagation. There was no room here for _choice_ , not for the poor souls it had picked as its tools. It really was just following instructions. All you had to do was make sure it went the way Fate had already decided it would.

And as you are thrust into the middle of things, you find yourself sliding into familiar patterns; the passive-aggressive acceptance of the way of things, the empty complaints of an unsatisfied soul who wants more but is too afraid to do what is necessary to get it. You may have had more choice in your old life than you knew, but the parallels between what was before and what is now (between your overbearing Father and cold, heartless Fate) is undeniable.

You have been Chosen, and your Fate chosen for you.

And now you stand in a laboratory, a place of dull metal and strange glass, and see before you the lives of the men and women who raised you and your friends. As green ectoplasm fills the jars, and the circuitous nature of your origin comes to light, you find yourself once more a tool with a mission; to put in motion the lives that you have already lived, to send forth your friends and parents (your sibling and your Father) to start it all over again.

You stand prepared to press a button that will form the very life you have already lived, and you feel the guiding hand of Fate at your back.

But you are the Witch of Hope, and so the Question must first be asked.

What will you do?

You have always wanted _Choice_. You want to decide for yourself.

And for once, you’re going to do it.

So fuck it all, and damn the consequences. You watch as your younger self goes to a _different_ asteroid, a _different_ portal, directed by your own hand. You watch as every one of the young children that form the players of the Game go off in different directions, headed for different times, different places, and you hope for the best.

You are the Witch of Hope, and you have always wanted Control.

Maybe you’ve Doomed them all. Maybe not.

But you have Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAHAH. You all thought I'd disappeared, didn't you? BUT YOU WERE WRONG! You won't be free of my clutches THAT easily, Homestuck Fandom! AHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
> 
> Anyway, Onwards, Hope Classes!


	58. The Sylph of Hope

Who are these people, Sylph of Hope?

These people? They’re the ragtag group of survivors you’ve been given the god-awful task of leading through Sgrub. The only eleven trolls to survive the apocalypse, and they’re too naive, too stupid, and too brutal to really get the extent of how doomed you really are.

And you’re the idiot doomed to throw them head-first into the abyss.

The good news is, the chaos of Sgrub really isn’t anything new. It’s a constant war of ideals, a struggle to be the best, a conflict between Creation and Destruction that will either give them their due reward or, much more likely, kill them all.

But really, how much different is that from life as usual? It isn’t like you haven’t already spent your few sweeps of existence in a constant struggle of existence from the tyrannical leadership of other trolls, and the casual cruelty of your fellow youths. The Game rings a chord with a part of you that you thought had been suppressed by sweeps of misery and blood, a part that exults in the death of monsters, and the idea of a Perfect Reward. As you shoot up the echeladder, you feel a satisfaction in the concrete marks of your progression that you haven’t ever felt before.

You feel as if you were truly made to play this game, by infinite fate and eternal paradox space.

But even then, you see the inevitable end you all are rushing to. You may keep your own friends going, but you don’t truly have any hope, yourself.

That seems to fit, considering your Title and all. To wield, and be wielded by, but not be a part of; that’s what being a Sylph is all about, right?

And yet, your team goes on.

Some of them hate each other, some of them pity each other, and most of them never wanted anything to do with each other, but you haven’t allowed them to turn this into ‘Twelve Strangers Play The Doom Game’; this is supposed to be teamwork, and you’re damn well going to make it so. You may be too smart, too aware, to really hope for yourself, but you can keep them going, right?

They bicker and argue, they kill and loot, they burn and pillage, they die, come back, and die all over again, stronger and stronger, and through it all there’s a sense of completion.

And now, you stand along the event horizon of The Last Boss, the greatest physical representation of this Game’s power, and the final obstacle that lies between you and your Reward. He’s larger than Infinity, and grander than Eternity, and you are all merely dust waiting to be swept away in his timeless, dark singularity eyes, and once again you curse the strange mixture of prototyping that has made this task truly impossible. How can you compete with the physical incarnation of a Black Hole?   




But you are the Sylph of Hope, and before you lead these poor souls to their inevitable doom, there is a Question that must be answered.

Who are these people?

In the end, they’re the eleven idiots who seem bound and determined to drive themselves to their own utter annihilation. They’re the doomed and the dying, the poor bastards who are too naive to realize there’s no point in trying, too stupid to see the end of eternity staring them in the face with anything less than defiance, and too brutal to take any of it lying down.

And damn it all if you aren’t one of them.  

Sgrub isn’t anything more than the Hard Mode version of a life you’ve all been living for six goddamn sweeps.

You weren’t made for this game.

This game was made for _you._

You’re all fucking _Trolls_ , and there’s no way you’re dying quietly into the night.

And if you have anything to say about it, you won’t be dying at all.

Heh.

Maybe you’ve got a bit more Hope than you thought.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor changes to the previous chapter, by the way; mostly I just changed the Question (both uses of it), as well as the immediate text afterwards.
> 
> Also; I may have written my favorite Sylph here. YAY!


	59. The Mage of Hope

What keeps you going, Mage of Hope?

God, you don’t know anymore. You keep trying, and trying, and trying, and you still have no idea.

You used to have an answer. You used to believe in something. You have a hard time remembering what, anymore.

It was something about Fate, you remember that much. Something about the universe not being that cruel. Something about how everyone had a chance, everyone had a possibility.

Yeah, you remember now. You used to believe there was no such thing as a no-win situation.

Sburb did a really good job of proving you wrong on _that_ point, didn’t it, genius?

You remember thinking quite highly of yourself. You were smart, and you were rich, and you were talented, and you were just the _best_ now, weren’t you? Nothing could have brought you down, nothing could defeat you.

You thought you were _invincible_.

God, you were wrong. You were so wrong.

And the irony of it all? The biggest joke that it’s played on you so far?

You’re the only reason they’re still going. The only reason they’re alive.

The only reason they have Hope.

You see it in every conversation. Isn’t it so plain? So obvious? The way that, no matter how dejected, how depressed, how doomed they feel, by the time you’re done talking to them, you can practically feel the good cheer _oozing_ out of them?

To an outsider, you suppose, it’d just look like you were good at cheering them up, but you know the truth. You feel it, that outside power that guides your fingertips as you type, that leads your tongue to speak the words that will bring your poor, ragged team out of despair. You know just what to say, every single time, and it means you know the truth of it all.

But even knowing the truth, it might have been enough. You could have gone on, paying lip service to the idea of success, to the possibility of winning, to the Hope of a Reward that made it all worthwhile.  

If you hadn’t found her body, cooling in the snow of your own world, it might have been enough.

But now, kneeling beside your Mother’s cold, unmoving corpse, you know that you have to acknowledge the truth.

That hope is nothing but a lie. It’s nothing but the fakey-fake nonsense that’s being fed to your team to eke one more day, one more hour, one more _minute_ of effort out of them by the Powers That Be.

You know that you’ve been feeding them nothing but a placebo.

And maybe… maybe you’re done with it. Maybe the cold, hard truth is a bitter pill, but you can’t keep doing this.

But you are the Mage of Hope, and first, the Question must be asked.

What keeps you going?

What kept you going was that meager, improbable glimpse of a future where you could live beside your best friends in peace. It was the barest thought of arguing with your Mother about music choices and making soup together and waiting for her to finish her next book so you could secretly read it while she was asleep. It was the hope that you might be able to live, at the end of it all.

But now she’s gone.

And nothing is keeping you going anymore.

Not even them.

You don’t have the Power to hope anymore. The rest of the world can rot, for all you care.

All of your Hope died with her.

You think you might stay in the snow, and wait for the end.

Doesn't that seem fitting?


	60. The Page of Hope

Who is your hero, Page of Hope?

Do you have to have just one?

Seriously, you’ve got, like, a dozen heroes. Probably more, if you bothered to count. You’ve got a few who are more present in your mind, of course, like Batman, or Harry Dresden, or Bumblebee from the new films, but there are plenty of others that come up from time to time.

Like Spiderman. Can’t forget Spiderman, and all of his snarky awesomeness.

Fantasy, science fiction, superheroes, detective noir, cyberpunk, even bad 80s action films; your heroes are all of these and more.

When you were growing up, these were the people you always wanted to be. Optimus Prime, Jim Raynor, Shepard, Link, The Terminator, Wolverine; you wanted to be all of them, and fight all of their battles, and teach all of their morals (and maybe woo all of their women, but you don’t talk about that as much to your friends).

So… so you hope it wasn’t that much of a surprise, what you did. It… well, could anyone blame you?

You weren’t the first in the game, so your friends told you about exactly what prototyping did.

And man, when they told you, you knew _exactly_ what you were going to do.

After all, wouldn’t anyone give _anything_ to be able to fight the villains their favorite heroes did?

So, while the others were getting ready to help you, you made your pile ready. Specific pages from specific books and comic, certain toys, printed screenshots of specific games, and more, all in a neat little pile.

Because when the time came, you were going to have the chance to fight the greatest villains in all of fiction, _in real life_.

God, it made so much sense when you planned it.

You tried to explain it to the others, later. You tried to explain that you didn’t really understand the scope of it, at the time. You think they understood.

They hadn’t either, after all.

But it didn’t change the fact that you had screwed everyone over so very, very hard.

When you found yourself fighting your own consorts, Indoctrinated to fight you against their will, you understood.

When your enemies changed their skin into monstrous forms, shifting from creature to creature, every one _wrong_ to look at, every one of them powerful enough that you figured you might just need nukes to kill them all, you understood.

When any machine, _even your own alchemiters_ , could be an enemy in disguise, ready to attack you at your weakest, you understood.

Your actions may well have doomed them all.

Yeah. You’re learning pretty well about the price of foolishness.

You are all held, now, in one last bastion. It’s the last safe place from your enemies, and it won’t last long.

You start to think this might be the end.

Then the Witch slaps you upside the head. She was always good at that.

All she has to do is point at the alchemiter, and now you’ve got another stupid, brilliant, one-in-a-million idea.

You look in your sylladex, and pull out the items that are going to redeem you.

You might not survive the next few hours, but by God, you’re all going out in _style_.

A few hours later, HE is there, in all of his massive, titanic glory. His single, massive eye glows with Sauron’s red fire, and his voice rumbles with the Reaper’s deep, electronic tones, and the Zerg’s sticky, oozing creep grows from every one of his footsteps. He is as immortal and powerful as Apocalypse, and as sinister and changing as the Skinwalker, and as terrifyingly mad as the Joker. He laughs, and god, the combination of the Joker’s high pitched mania and the Reaper’s droning, cold malice sends your heart into your boots.

And that didn’t even take into account all of the minions he had brought with him.

But beside you are your friends, with all of the equipment you made, with love, alchemy, and a lot of luck. Here is the Witch, with Cyclop’s visor and Zelda’s bow. Here is the Knight, duel-wielding a lightsaber and the Master Sword. Here is the Rogue, in all the trappings of a Terran marine’s blue power armor, Impaler rifle in hand.

And here’s you, with Batman’s belt on your waste, Captain America’s shield in one hand, and Dresden’s staff in your other.

And Indiana Jones’ hat, because _why not_.

You are preparing to go to your death, but you are the Page of Hope, and first, a Question must be asked.

Who is your hero?

Your heroes are the underdogs and the trodden, the diamonds in the rough and the defeated who keep on fighting. Your heroes are the ones who are given power, but out of the goodness of their heart, use it with law and righteousness in their hearts. Your heroes are the ones who stand for something greater than money, or fame, or other selfish things.

Your heroes are the ones who have forgiven you for your mistakes.

Whatever else it’s done, Sburb has turned your friends into everything you ever hoped to be, and more.

Your friends are the greatest heroes you will ever have, and even if this is the end, you’re going down in a way even the greatest of fictional heroes would be envious of.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll come out on top anyway.

Because, in the end, isn't that how the stories always go?


	61. The Thief of Hope

What’s in it for you, Thief of Hope?

The stars, and everything under them.

After all, if you’re going to reach, you might as well reach for the impossible, right?

And humankind seems to have sort of a hard on for doing the impossible. You might as well make your own contributions.

When you learned how your universe began, you weren’t surprised. You were only vindicated. The others were shocked and awed and all that jazz over the whole revelation, but all you see is a path.

All you see is the Reward.

If twelve bickering frenemies could stumble their way into creating the _very stars themselves_ , why can’t you? The trolls may have lost their chance, but you aren’t losing yours.

And you’re going to start by knowing the truth.

The trolls saw their Session as a conflict to be won, a challenge to be finished, a personal insult to their skills that needed to be put in its place. Your friends see it as a quest, a journey to be traveled, a villain to be stopped before more death and chaos follows in its wake.

You know it for what it is, though.

An _opportunity._

Your friends see only what it has taken away.

You see what it has given.

You want power? _Earn it._ It’s right there in front of you, in echeladders and god tiers and Titles. Power to be stolen, power to be gifted, power to be learned; all that needs to be known is the path you’re willing to take.

You want treasure? _Make it._ The very fabric of creation bends itself to your will, weapons and armors and artifacts forged by creativity and alchemy and your own special brand of ruthlessness.

You want revenge?

It’s right there in front of you.

All you have to do is take it.

This is the truth of Sburb. This is the truth of the Game.

This is what you will use to get your team through.

They aren’t ready, but you _are_. You’ve been ready for this since you were born. And because you’re the one who’s ready, that means you’re also the one who has to keep them going.

You have to keep them _alive_ , no matter the cost.

What’s in it for you?

The stars, and someone to watch them with.

You’re going to win. You’re _all_ going to win.

Because this Reward isn’t for you alone. Your new stars won’t be worth watching on your own. And in the end, it’ll be worth it. It has to be worth it.

Right?


	62. The Prince of Hope

What lies at the end, Prince of Hope?

Wishes and dreams and hopes, that’s what’s at the end, right?

That’s the way it goes. You want something, and you get it. You do everything you can, everything within your power, and you make your dreams happen. _That’s how it works._

That’s… that’s how it’s _supposed_ to work.

So that’s what you do. You go forward. You strive. You _do_. That’s how it works.

You want love, right? So why shouldn’t you make yourself clear? Why shouldn’t you? The weak fall behind, and those who wallow in doubt and hesitation never make the finish line. You’re going to be number one, you are going to have _all_ the quadrants, and you’re going to have them while you’re still young.

The fact that you’ve been turned down is… inconsequential.

It’s _meaningless,_ damn it all.

It’s a numbers game. You have to ask, have to make it clear, because even if every one of them is incompatible, even if they will never understand you, you know that eventually you’ll find the One. It’s a matter of percentages.

It’s Fate.

Even if… even if _she_ wasn’t the one, even if she saw pale when you saw pails, well, that’s still fine. That’s still a quadrant filled, right? A quarter of your romantic serendipity!

But that’s not all, is it? You want _power_ , too, but everyone you meet seems to overshadow you so _effortlessly_. Everyone you meet is…

Better than you.

The solution seems simple. Kill your way to the top. That’s the way it goes. That’s the _Troll_ way of things.

And if you’re starting at the bottom, then by the time you’re done, the world will be left with nothing but ashes and bloody water.

Genocide. It has a certain _ring_ to it, a finality that rolls so very well off of your tongue.

Power and love. Those are what you want.

And God, when the Game comes, it seems like you’re so very close.

Fiery stone and screaming death, all around, and pretty soon all that’s left of Troll kind is black ashes and bloody water.

It’s _perfect_.

And in the survivors, you see your Serendipity. You’ll make them see, right? After all, it’s not like they have much choice.

And would you look at that, the game seems to just _give_ you more power. There’s an enemy here for you to fight, to _conquer_ , in white wings and black eyes and stained glass wrath. You’ve got a purpose, too, a mighty foe that you stand against so that your teammates might live.

You had hoped not to stand _alone_ , per se, but if this is the way it goes, so be it.

You’re so close to your dream, now, you can _taste_ it.

And… and then it’s gone. All of your wishes, gone. A new angel enters the scene, one of black voids and green thunder and bright golden destruction, a King of Angels that changes the game irreparably.

And none of your friends want anything to do with you anymore. Not the former moirail who left you, not the kismesis who dumped you, not the auspistice who can’t help but meddle with everyone _but_ you, _nobody_.

You’re all finished, you realize, and you’re the only one who sees it. You’re the Prince of Hope, and only you have the authority to answer the Question.

What lies at the end?

False wwishes, broken dreams, and shattered hopes. That’s all there fuckin is.

There’s no more Hope.

There’s only one thing you can do, now. Survival is at stake.

She’ll see that, too.

She’ll understand.

You have to believe that.

So you’ll ask her to come with you.

And she’ll come.

She’ll come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was tough! I went back and forth on what to focus on, what to show, because the unfortunate part of doing these shorts is that I can really only focus on one or two things per character. There's a lot of possibility in Eridan, but I focused on both his desperate sort of hopes, and the way he has to constantly delude himself that it'll all be fine. And, because he lost hope in the end, he lost. Seems pretty basic. I'm very happy with this one, and I wouldn't be surprised if this one is the best of the Canon-Kids I've done so far.


	63. The Seer of Hope

What do you believe in, Seer of Hope?

You believe in light that blooms like a flower, in the strange taste of fairy dust from a westward wind, in the gentle touch of shadows chiding you for your trespass, and in the soft places of the world where everything is true.

You are strange, but that is the way you like it.

After all, the world is a strange place.

You’ve seen it, after all. You’ve seen the eyes that look back from cold brick wall, and you’ve heard the song of rain dancing on the cobblestones. You’ve felt the trees watch you as you watch them, and you’ve talked with the river in words you cannot understand.

And in your dreams, you see even more.

You see golden spires in a tar-black void, and a mighty chain that keeps a moon bound to its mother. You’ve seen the beings of chess-white marble and friendly black eyes, marching about as if playing a board. You’ve seen white infinite clouds of sound and sight and truth, a window into the stranger lines of the future.

The world is a strange place, and soon you know you’ll see the strangest places of them all.

They will be dark places, you know. Places of dark grins and murderous knives held by cancerous malice, places of impish mischiefs and ogre-cruelty, of basilisk tongues and lich-grasps.

They will be battle places, of flashing Sword and glinting Coin and swishing Wand and your own truth-sight Vessel that shows you the End of Things.

They will be wild places, of reaching green Spires, of voluminous Clouds, of deep-fanged Maws, of soft, crystalline Glass.

They will be end places.

And all of you will die.

The others know this. They see the dark and the battle and the wild, and they see death. Of course they do. Doom and Blood and Rage they are, dark souls and battle souls and wild souls, meant to fight and dance and control, and all they see is the End.

They do not See what lies Beyond.

And nowadays, neither do you.

You see what they see, and you see it better. You see the Ends, a crushing end and a fiery end and a bloody end and for you, a shattering of mind and body at the hands of a dark Mistress, a battle-eyed Empress, a wild Black Queen.

You see nothing but the End, now.

But there was a time, long, long ago, before you understood the Truth, before you awoke among the Towers, before you began to read the Clouds, when you saw something More.

There is still the First Dream, waiting to come to pass.

You are the Seer of Hope, and a Question must be asked.

What do you believe in?

You believe in that one soft dreamlit vision of your youth. You believe in the gentle, tearstained smiles of weary heroes. You believe in the bright light of a new sun, blooming like a flower in the sky. You believe in the strange taste of fairy dust from a newborn wind. You believe in the chiding hands of shadows protesting the first trespass they had ever known.

You believe in a world where everything is new.

You believe in this dream, and so you face your End, your Shattering, with a smile on your face.

Every other dream came true, after all.

And stranger things have happened.


	64. The Knight of Hope

Who do you fight for, Knight of Hope?

The _fuck_ if you know.

You’ve had people telling you all your life who and what you should fight for. You don’t know who to believe anymore.

The creeper? The strange, white text chick who seems to know more than she should? She tells you you’re going to fight for a miserable cause. You’re going to fight for something stupid, she says. Fuck her. She’s probably just trying to scare you.

Your school? They tell you not to fight. It’s wrong, apparently. Screw them. You don’t give a damn what they think, anyway. Those teachers, those kids, those outsiders have never been on the same wavelength as you.

Like they were another species or something.

Your friends? Two of them don’t want you to fight. You understand those two, though. They just want you safe.

Heh. Deep city kid getting advice from the woods and mountain dwellers about how to survive. It’s cute.

The third, though, she’s different. Different in a lot of ways, but in the Question as well. She wants you to fight for…

Something? Shit, you don’t understand. Yellow and purple cities, apparently. A dark moon prince, she calls you.

You’re no prince. If you were a prince, you’d have money. Money enough to get the hell out of this place.

But she, the little dreamer by the sea, wants you to fight for bigger things. She wants you to fight for a _cause_.

You’d find it precious, if she weren’t so fucking _serious_ about it all.

Life isn’t a fantasy, as your Uncle would say.

Heh. Segue points.

So last, and not fucking least, is your Uncle.

Your mother. Fucking. _Uncle._

He wants you to fight because…

Fuck. Because he never did, that’s what you think.

You used to wonder if he was doing it for you. Like, if he was preparing you for the kind of shit that life throws at you. You could appreciate that, you think.

But no. Too much bitterness in him for that. You think maybe he just wants a weapon.

Countless nights in back-alley streets, nothing but whatever you could get your hands on between you and bruised ribs, bloody hands, black eyes, all in the name of _training_.

Heh. And your teachers wonder why you get into so many fights.

You still haven’t beaten the man at his own game, but damn it all, you’ve _tried_.

You keep on trying right through the end of the world.

And fuck it all, would you look at that. Fire and brimstone, like a biblical Apocalypse.

With that all coming down, you’re quickly shunted into the Game.

Heh. Little sea dreamer was right all along, wasn’t she?

So now you’re a Knight. And now the Game wants you to fight, too.

Could it be bothered to give you anything to work with, though?

Of fucking course not. That’d be too easy.

Little tree walker gets the fun stuff, gets to mess with the fabric of Space. And the mountain climber gets to fuck with Time.

Even the little sea dreamer got her own special suite of Mind powers.

All you’ve got is a crappy blade, and all the wrong training.

Your Uncle never taught you to fight. He just taught you how to get beat up.

And you do. A _lot_. Anything bigger than an imp seems to toss you around like a fucking toy, and even the imps swarm you easy. The Time chicky is at your back a lot, saving your weary ass from one encounter or another. She doesn’t seem to mind.

You don’t really care anymore, either.

This isn’t your Game. This isn’t your Cause. This isn’t your Fight.

Another world? You could give a damn. You don’t want to rule, and you don’t want the responsibility. You get through this, you’ll probably just find a nice rock and be a hermit.

Revenge? You didn’t even like the world you came from.

Power? The Game sure as hell didn’t give you anything to work with.

Just your own two fists, and a shitty sword.

You’re at the bottom of the fucking totem pole, with nothing but your own pigheaded stubbornness and a guardian angel keeping you from taking a dirt nap.

And despite it all, you’ve still got a Question that must be asked.

Who do you fight for?

Heh.

Looks like you’ve known the answer all along.

Someone’s been worth it, after all. There’s someone you have to fight for, someone you have to stand for, someone you have to _succeed_ for.

 _You._

You fight for yourself.

Because despite it all, despite every person you’ve let down, every person whose expectations you betrayed, you refuse to give yourself that final indignity.

You refuse to give up.

So from every failed fight, you’ll pick yourself up from the dust.

You’ll lick every wound, and come back with a vengeance.

All you’ve got is two fists and a shitty sword.

So you’ll make that work.

You may be at the bottom, but it just means that when you get to the top, you’ll be all the stronger for it.

It’s time to get off your fucking knees.

It’s time to wrap your hand around that shitty handle.

It’s time to show this Game how much of a mistake it made, bringing you into all of this.

You’re the Knight, and you’re fighting for a miserable, stupid cause.

Heh. Looks like the white-texted creeper was right about that all along.

But you know the truth.

It’s not hopeless.

Not while you can stand.


	65. The Maid of Hope

How do you die, Maid of Hope?

Does it matter?

Death can come in so many ways, after all.

It could be by the meteors (old-stone and red-fire) that herald the coming of the Game, could it not?

Or perhaps by those creatures (slick-blood and malice-hearted), those enemies who stand in your way.

Or maybe it’s the Queen (battle-dressed and oblivion-seeking) who will give you your end, in a final confrontation of titanic proportions.

You have a hard time caring, in the end. One death (black-death, dream-death, god-death) is much the same as another.

It’s an end.

And maybe you’d like an end. Maybe you’d like to stop, and lie in the sand, and just… drift away into nothingness (sorrowless, griefless, painless).

There are so many ways you could do it. A ring (sun-banded, grass-jeweled, power-filled), its powers turned inward, perhaps. A fall from a cliff into the deep sands (dark sands, grey sands) below would be quick.

Or perhaps you’ll just let it be messy (red-blood, pink-flesh, lifeless and wasted), and let an Ogre take a swipe at you.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe you don’t care enough, to do it or not, to die or to live.

It’s been that way since he (bright-eyed, soft-smiled, sibling-parent) went away.

Ever since he died (green-light, death-light, sun-light).

How can you move on without him?

He was going to keep you safe (protected, warm, sheltered). And he died.

It all seems pointless, now.

And suddenly, He (viper-grinned, dagger-eyed, devil-winged) is there.

He holds trophies in his hand (a familiar watch, a leather-bound book, a white-silver pendant, a pale-yellow feather), trophies of those he has taken (guardians, parents, protectors).

And now he is here to take you (end you, kill you).

And he has so many ways (green-fire-ways, black-thunder-ways, gold-nothing-ways, Sun-ways) at his disposal to do it.

All you have to do is choose which one.

You are the Maid of Hope (servant-child, chain-bound, despair-ridden, weak) and this demon (this cancer, this disease, this titan) asks you the Question you must answer.

How do you die?

There are so many ways, aren’t there?

But seeing that watch (his watch, Brother’s watch, _your watch_ ), you realize that there’s only one death you want.

You’re going to die of old age (of life filled, of a world made, of a purpose fulfilled).

You’re going to die in a world (a universe, a Reward, a destiny) you made by your own hand.

Not by this monster’s (this wretch’s, this devil’s, this _murderer’s_ ) hand.

You stand in the dark sand (deep sand, grey sand, _your sand_ ), and bring your weapon (your band, your power, _your ring_ ) to bear, and make a decision.

Time to live.


	66. The Bard of Hope

What makes a hero, Bard of Hope?

You know the answer well.

It’s a subtle thing, though. History, myth, and legend are all filled with clever heroes, mighty heroes, wise heroes, men and women who embodied the purest and most universal of those champion traits.

But are there not others in history, as well? Those who are not clever, or mighty, or wise?

Of _course_ there are. Where would the world be without them?

If history has taught you anything, if the base archetypes that fill all myth and legend have shown you one thing, it’s that there’s more than mere strength, wit, or intelligence to a hero.

Maybe it was courage. The ability to face pain, to face loss, to face even death and still remain standing; that might be it, couldn’t it?

Or perhaps it was compassion; the ability to see good in things that should not have it, the ability to look beyond the surface, behind the wrongs, and see the good in people.

It could be as simple as determination. After all, it didn’t matter how wise, or compassionate, or strong, or clever, or courageous you were, if you gave up before you had given all you had to give.

Or maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t just one of these.

Maybe it was all of these at once. They could be one and the same, an inner light that shines through all adversity, a light that wins through the darkest of nights.

You’ve always called it Hope. Funny, how life works.

And when the Game gave you the chance to prove yourself, you jumped at the chance.

God, you just _leaped_ , didn’t you?

Bard, they call you, and you tell them the stories, you guide them as if you were the Oracle herself, telling them the way it should be, and through your guidance you help them to keep going. It’s all the easier to fight if you look at it like this, like it’s the Hero’s Tale, and you’re following a mythic archetype that’s been through history since the dawn of time.

It was such a beautiful idea.

Of course it was too long to last.

Things are all falling apart, now, and you’d like to say you don’t know where it all went wrong, but you do.

You _do_ , and it kills you a little every time you think of it.

The seeds of it were there. The false smiles, the hidden fear, the shaking hands. Every one of them had it, didn’t they? They were barely holding themselves together, even when it all started, and it only went downhill from there.

You’re standing now, in the ashes of the Land that had been given to you, and you know the seeds of this had been there all along.

You think of your consorts, the gentle things who liked to climb you like a tree. You think of the Denizen, so reasonable, so understanding, so wise, who helped you to lead as best as he could, with only your companionship as a price. You thought of this Land’s portion of the Ultimate Reward, lost forever to the Void.

You thought of your Land, scoured of life by someone you once called a friend.

You are standing in the ashes of your defeat, and now you must be asked a Question.

What makes a hero?

They can be clever, or wise, or mighty, it is true.

And the Prince was nothing if not _mighty_.

But it was that inner light that made them a Hero.

It was the courage that kept them standing in the face of fear. And you remember all too well how your companions cowered and shook, don’t you?

It was the compassion that let them see below the surface of things. And you remember how quickly the Prince killed his Denizen, how cruelly your desperately afraid friends took the lives of the poor constructs that the Game threw against them.

It was the determination never to falter, never to fall, until all had been given.

And where were your friends now, the wayward Rogue and Sylph?

Hiding. Grieving. Cowering.

Gone.

And where was the Prince?

Well, he stood before you now, his eyes full of a dark, all-consuming Nothing. Everything had been taken from him, and he’d take Everything from the Game, in return. A fallen Prince, with nothing left to give.

What makes a Hero?

It took a Hope that none of your friends had.

And though there might be a chance, though you did not know everything there was to know about the Game, though the Reward might still be attainable, you didn’t have it either.

How could you be expected to go on, now?

After all…

You weren’t a Hero.


	67. The Rogue of Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to give a big thanks for MeleeMage, who went and did a big audio version of all of the Titles so far! They're all found in the link below, along with a few others who gave their contribution! 
> 
> And if anyone else wants to do their version, please go ahead! I'd love to hear them!
> 
> http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?45317-The-Game-and-Those-Who-Play-Audio-Edition

Is this the end, Rogue of Hope?

You don’t bloody well know that, do you?

It sure seems like it, though. It all went pear-shaped after you…

Well. After you did what you did.

Games are made to be won, in the end. Winning is where half the fun is, right? Not the faffing about with those bloody ‘rules’ or ‘enforced limitations’, though. Those weren’t fun.

So you cheat. Of _course_ you cheat; you’d be daft not to! Especially when programmers make it so easy to get into the code and bodge stuff up. All you have to do is wander in, change a few values, and you’re the highest level, with the best weaponry, and every monster had better watch out, or you’d _bugger them all to hell._

Cheating is the other half of the fun, after all!

So when you got this shiny new _Sburb_ game, with those lovely letters spelling _beta_ in the corner, well, you knew you’d bumbled into the game of a lifetime. Betas were known for being quite buggy, weren’t they? All the easier to mess with the game!

As it turned out, messing with the code was _quite_ the fiddly arrangement. The coding language was almost unworkable; as if the blighters had used a whole new language altogether to program the damned thing! Half of it was nothing but nutter’s gibberish, and the whole thing seemed all sixes and sevens to you.

But you did it.

 _Wow_ , did you do it.

Of _course_ it turned out badly. How could you have expected anything else?

It started, of course, right from the beginning, when the Entry item simply placed itself in front of you.

No running about like a headless chicken for your team, no. Just easy entry! Simple.

Oh, what consequences that would have.

After all, it meant you never had a chance to prototype.

Not that that would have helped matters one bloody bit.

You had the highest level gear, the greatest bloody loot the game could give you, and it all accounted for nothing, in the end.

As soon as you got in, you had bright blue ladybirds swarming over you. Your consorts, apparently, but not yours anymore. They attacked you until you ran, and then chased you across half of your planet, a third of which was simply blank, static _nothing_ , as if parts of the planet had ceased to exist.

Some of your imps were like that as well. Simply rectangular voxels where heads should be, and black-white snow crackling where you know you should be seeing some sort of substance. You think of Missingno., and a part of you shivers with deeply set dread.

And when Jack finds you, it doesn’t matter how many levels your cheating gave you, how many sweet items you started with. He defeats you.

It’s hard to kill something that doesn’t quite exist, after all.

Your hiding, now. Dossing about in an abandoned cave, and slowly watching the textures start to turn to rough polygons. Soon they’ll turn into nothing more than static.

The others are with you. And some of them hate you. Not their fault, you think; you did bodge everything up, after all. It’s all balls-up, now.

But still, there’s a Question, isn’t there?

Is this the end?

…

No.

No, it bloody well isn’t.

Because you still know the Truth.

You’re the Rogue, and it’s time to live up to your Title. Time to find another Way to win.

After all, half of the fun of the Game is Cheating. 

And you plan on _cheating like the dickens._

Might as well continue, after all. You've got nothing else to lose, and everything to gain.

Because the other half of the fun is Winning.

And you’re not much of one to lose, now, are you?


	68. The Heir of Hope

What is Hope?

That is my Question, of course.

But I don’t think I want to answer it. Not myself, at least. I have too many good reasons not to, after all, and too much experience in such things to dive blindly into it. It is true, in the end, that Fate both curses and rewards the bold, and I find myself tired of Fate’s gifts.

You’ll have to forgive my rambling. It’s to be expected, given my current situation, but that’s no excuse to be rude.

I think, instead, I’ll ask you a few questions. Nothing like mine, of course; there’s no capital Q to the ones I’m asking you. These are simply the wonderings of a tired soul.

Do you regret?

I don’t need specifics. I just wonder if you do. Are there things you wish you hadn’t done?

Worse, are there things you wish you _had_?

I have those, of course. Words I wished I had said, most especially. Deeds that I think, now, I could have accomplished.

The one that will haunt me, I think, will be the hand that I didn’t hold.

Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all. Isn’t that the phrase?

I never got that chance, and I lost her anyway.

I wonder if I am alone in this. In regretting. I know full well that others regret, but at my age?

We are so terribly young, after all.

I suppose I’ll move on. I didn’t particularly want an answer, anyway. I just wanted you to think about it.

My next question, I suppose, is similarly intrusive. Unfortunately, I really don’t have time for tact, as much as I would like it.

Do you hurt?

Emotionally, physically, mentally, it doesn’t really matter. The distinctions mean less than you think they would. Pain is pain.

And we have hurt. Sometimes more than others, but it never truly goes away. We hurt.

It always hurts, it seems. Right now, more than ever, but that’s to be expected.

I hope you haven’t, yet. Not the way we have.

But I know you will. It’s only a matter of time.

I don’t have much time left. So, I shall continue.

Have you ever failed?

Seriously, truly _failed_ , I mean. Broken a promise that you held dear, or failed to fulfill a task you wanted to achieve, or missed a goal that was important to you? Have you ever failed?

I’ve done that. So many times, I’ve done that. Failed when I needed to succeed most. It’s why I’m here, now, after all; to try and fix those mistakes I could not afford to make.

You’ll fail, as well, if you haven’t already. It’s a fact of life.

These are such dark questions, aren’t they? I apologize. This is a dark moment, for me.

Why don’t I leave you with one, last question to consider.

In fact, let’s call it the Question, capital and all.

It’s my Question, you see, but it’s also my Answer. And my Answer is not yours.

What is Hope?

What do you derive your courage, your motivation, your drive from? What keeps you going when all is dark?

What keeps you moving on past your regrets?

What helps you work through the pain?

What makes you keep trying past the failures?

I have my own Answer.

So do you.

Ask yourself these Questions, observers, and consider your Answers carefully. Because you have been Chosen.

You will regret.

You will hurt.

You will fail.

Like every one of us Players have.

And the only way you can Win is if you Hope.

I am the Heir, and mine is the only Question that matters, in the end. But I can’t give you the Answer.

That’s for you to find, in the dark days to come.

It’s time for me to go, now. This reprieve has helped me remember some things I needed to remember, but the Black Queen isn’t going to kill herself, after all. Numerous gaping chest wounds are no excuse for sitting down on the job, and I think she’s going to lose patience if I don’t stand back up.

I’ve got a job to do.

And so will you.

Always remember the Question, Observers.

And pray for me. I think I’ll need that, in the moments to come.


	69. The Maid of Doom

You are sitting at the window when the rocks begin to fall. And all you can think about is the fact that this has been brought about by your own actions.

It is a strange thought.

You’ve dreamt of this for a long, long time. You’ve dreamed of Skaia, of the Game, of Prospit, of the friends who dream near you and those who dream on Derse. And as fast as you could, you started to find them, in real life, on the Internet, on Earth, because when everyone told you that they were only dreams, just fantasies, you needed validation. You needed to know that you weren’t crazy ( _mother_ ).

And you did find them, didn’t you? It was such a rush, such a fantastically outstanding feeling, to be right for once. You lived with being wrong for far too long ( _moTher_ ). And when you found out you were right, you started making plans.

The Game wouldn’t come about on its own. You had to help it along; you had to find the code, to plant the seeds, to start the process, and that would take years. Long, long years. But you had time, and you had patience, and you had the will to make it all happen ( _mOTher_ ). You had to be right. You had to be.

Sometimes it was difficult; you had to sneak out more than once to the forest outside your home, where you knew there was a certain amphibian temple that you had to locate. But to sneak out, you had to find some way out of the barred windows, or pick the lock on your door, and it took you many, many weeks to be able to figure it out. But you had time. She’d given you that time, after all ( _mOThEr_ ).

You put the pieces in place, you planted the seeds, you got the Game afoot, bit by arduous bit, for your friends, for your Reward, for you. You wanted your dreams to be true, for the Game, for Skaia, for the world you would create, and for that one last reason you didn’t want to admit ( _mOTHEr_ ). And, one by one, your dreams kept coming true.

Exactly as all of them, the doctors and psychiatrists and specialists ( _mOTHER_ ), had always told you would never happen.

But here you are, aren’t you? The first of your friends has gotten in, bringing her house and her pet and her precious, perfect Aunt with her, and you know that even if this Game destroys the world, it has the chance, that one possible chance, of saving the one who raised you ( _MOTHER_ ), as long as you bring her with you.

Which is why you make extra, absolutely, positively sure that she is away on business before you start the Game.

You’re sitting by the barred windows ( _PUT THERE BY HER_ ), watching the world end ( _GLORIOUSLY, PATHETICALLY, RIGHTEOUSLY)_ , exactly as you always knew it would ( _AND THEY CALLED YOU MAD BECAUSE OF IT_ ), and you know that the billions who did not believe ( _THOSE BILLIONS WHO HATED YOU_ ), who locked you and barred you and put you away like you were something to be ashamed of ( _SOMETHING TO BE FORGOTTEN, BELITTLED, DISCARDED_ ), are now about to die.

 _She_ ( _MOTHER_ **MOTHER** MOTHER) is about to die.

And you made it happen.

It’s such a strange, exhilarating, _intoxicating_ thought, isn’t it?

It’s almost your turn to get in. And now that the world is burning, it’s all going to be okay.

And as you turn away from the wonderful, terrible thing you have wrought, a little voice in your head speaks.

_Come, see my works, the Artist says. Are they not beautiful?  
_


	70. The Thief of Doom

You should have known (you should have known, have known) what would happen.

The start of the Game has come and gone. Your teammates are on their worlds. Your sprites have told you your Titles. Your enemies have mustered their forces. The Game has started, and the deck is stacked against you.

The Game wants you to lose, your sprite says. But you can stop it, as long as you figure out what the coin means (what it means, the strange black coin).

You took it from an imp with a strange notched ear. A small black coin, with your mark, your Aspect, emblazoned upon it, and for some reason it felt like fire (like fire, fire). The imp didn’t seem any worse for wear (but for a notch on the ear, on the ear). It wandered away (away, away), and you let it go, because it was just an imp (a harmless imp, an imp with no coin).

But it came back three days later. It seemed crazed (dazed, glazed), and for some reason, you couldn’t kill it (not with fist, nor stone, nor blade). Not until you touched that coin (that strange black coin) back to its head, and suddenly it fell into one of the rivers of fire that covered your land. You gave it its coin (that strange black coin), and you gave it its End.

And, oh, how beautiful it is, because now you know what you are. You are the Thief (and you Take what is Yours (and what is Yours is Doom (and Doom is the End (and the End is a strange black coin, your currency, your reward, your prize)))), and oh, how wondrous it is (it is, it is,)!

You Take from an ogre, a fate filled with fire, and Take from a Basilisk a death of blades (two strange black coins, heavy in your hands), and you give one to the other, and back again, and how you delight when they trade their fates (trade their coin, their Ends), when an ogre dies by blades and a basilisk dies by fire, and you know what you have to do.

Because the Game wants you to lose, your sprite says. But you can stop it, now that you know what the coin means (what it means, the strange black coin).

So you speak to a player (of clocks, of Time), who tells you the end is nigh (the End is Nigh), and that there is no Hope (for Hope is an Aspect your session lacks), because your session is null (your session will end in failure, no matter the path, because you all die (die (die))).

But she didn’t see the Truth of your Fate (the Truth of your Aspect (the Truth of your strange black coins)). But you saw it.

So you took from her a coin (a grand Fate, an epic Fate, an immutable Fate of a deep black nothing), and you take from your Knight a coin, and you take from your Bard a coin, and you take from your Heir a coin, and you take from your Witch a coin, and you reach in yourself (deep, deep inside) and you take from yourself a coin, and when all of their fates weigh in your hand like pieces of silver you go to the Queen and the King and you pay your tribute.

The Thief gives her Tribute, and they have no choice but to take it, the weighty fates of Nothingness, the Null fates of six players forced onto two, and you know they will die.

And your team never will.

But it isn’t all right in the end, and you remember an Imp (crazed, dazed, glazed), and you think of that Truth behind the Truth, because if you don’t have an End, what do you have (WHAT DO YOU HAVE?)? Nothing but an unraveling, because without an End you are nothing but a record on repeat, living on borrowed time, and you should have known (you should have known, have known) the Truth (behind the Truth (behind the Truth)).

All must pay their dues in time.

And you have taken the only currency (those strange black coins) that your team could have used to pay it.

So when you start to come apart at the seams (physically, mentally, but fiscally mostly, hah, _hah_ , **hah** ), when your fate of Nothingness catches up with you anyway (oh, how funny, how hilarious, how Doomed you are!), but not in Nullness, not Nothingness, not Voidness, but in good, plain Insanity (HAH _HAH_ **HAH** , how funny, the ways that Fate Dooms you!), you hear a little voice in the back of your head whisper what you should have known.

_Go, run as fast as you can, the Wolf says. I’ll still catch you in the end._


	71. The Knight of Doom (April Fools!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I sort of hit writer's block (and by 'writer's block', I mean 'lots and lots of booze'), so this one was hard to write! Inbetween dodging all of the horrible, horrible April Fool's Pranks, and stealing the wallets of the unlucky people who DIDN'T dodge the horrible, horrible April Fool's Pranks, I hardly had the time to post this one! But don't worry, ArcFour is always comes through eventually. Enjoy the Knight of Doom! It is probably my best work, ever, for all time.

_The Plan of Formulas_

 

Insert some clever hook here, like, with italix (sp?) and stuff. Maybe try to be tricky and foreshadowy and stuff; readers love that!

And here’s the setup. Boring, boring setup. We all know this stuff, it’s like _yep, normal kid, normal life, normal stuff that’s probably just a ripoff of a canon character’s setup with a minor tweak_. But it’s necessary for padding reasons; if the exciting stuff is too short, come back here and make this bit even longer. No one will notice!

And then BAM. THE GAME. BOOYEAH. Probably with something kind of epic sounding like “And then the Game changed everything”. Yeah, that’s good, try to use that as much as possible. Note to self; make a list of all the possible ways you can say ‘asteroids fall, everyone dies’ in like, poetic words and stuff. We don’t want to be repetitive, after all!

Oh, don’t forget the caps. Nothing says Important like Capitalized Words, amiright?

Okay, so, next try and fumble around to figure out a power. Then realize that someone else has already probably thought of that power, so try to figure out something else. Then think up a really good running metaphor and go back and work that into the beginning (and the middle and more of the middle and pretty much all 800 words are probably going to be the running metaphor).

If there isn’t a good power, see if you can B.S. your way through fitting, like, a powerless Grand Destiny in there, like, with implied romance or insanity or something. Or even better, implied romance AND implied insanity! Maybe make the character kill everyone else or something; people like downer endings, right?

Next, try and remember that metaphor you set up earlier, because now is the time to _completely forget it_ , write the whole ending, and then remember it only as you’re just about to press ‘add chapter’. Panic for a bit, (that part is very important) and completely mangle the awesome ending you wrote so that you can shoehorn that metaphor. _This is the most important step, other than all the other steps._

Oh, then don’t forget to only then look at your ‘official document’ of ‘official ramblings’ made of ‘official insanity’ where you totally wrote a much better idea for the class, but what can you do now? You’ve already thought up the metaphor and everything! So maybe shoehorn that idea into a different class, and just pretend you’d had that idea all along. Sylphs are good for that, right?

Stupid, stupid Sylphs; the garbage receptacle of the class list.

Oh, don’t forget! Try to end it on some sort of, like, ominous quote or saying or something. Ominous quotes are _awesome_. Oh, and don’t forget to shoehorn all of those lovely, lovely metaphors into all of the _other_ classes in that aspect! You wouldn’t want to waste that perfectly reusable Metaphor, right?

Then, last step, go back and make sure there isn’t anything else you can italixize (sp?) and Capitalize, Capitalize, Capitalize! Then post it, and watch the money roll in. There is money involved in it, right? You assume so.

This is going to be _So Awesome._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! This one had it all! High adventure, tragic sadness, weird alien romance, and lots and lots of insanity!
> 
> Wait... 
> 
> Wait a second...
> 
> THIS ISN'T THE KNIGHT OF DOOM AT ALL.
> 
> It's my Secret Success Formula! HOW DID I PUT THIS UP HERE?
> 
> It must be karma for stealing those wallets! 
> 
> STOP LOOKING AT MY SECRETS. STOP RIGHT THIS INSTANT. 
> 
> NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!


	72. The Heir of Rage (Redux)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been unhappy with my Heir of Rage ever since I wrote it. So, recently, I decided to rewrite it. Here's the Redux version! Next is the Knight of Doom (the real one, that is). 
> 
> ALSO, I noticed that The Game, and Those Who Play now has a place on the Fanfic Recs on TVTropes! How awesome is that? Many thanks to KuyanJ, who put it on there. And if anyone wants to comment on the Recs page, I will read them as diligently as I read comments here! 
> 
> Maybe someday this will even have a TVTropes page all its own! 
> 
> So, here's the Heir of Rage: Redux!

To Be, and in Being, Rise. That is my Quest.

And it is **q _uit_ e** the quest, my friends.

This Title is a troubling one, isn’t it? It sounds so disturbing. And it has brought me no end of questions and concerns from my fellow players. Many, many concerns, the poor things.

And I’m certain you have questions of your own, do you not?

After all, the Heir’s role is to inh **er** **it** , to _be_ , their Aspect, where all others merely reflect one minor facet of the greater whole. And to be Rage? You’d think I’d be some sort of violent, split-personality monstrosity, an out-of-control terror obsessed with mindless destruction.

A funny thought, to be sure, and one that my fe _llows ha_ ve brought up many a time, but it also shows a lack of understanding. Or should I say, Understanding.

The Heir’s role is many things, and one facet of that is to be aware of the Trifecta, that sadly doomed Trio whose failure is almost inherent to their nature.

I speak, **o f c _our_ se**, of the Unbalanced Three, the Mage, Witch, and Seer. To have Power, but no Control; to have Control, but no Understanding; to have Understanding, but no Power. It seems that, no matter which of them you are, you are doomed to have the deck stacked against you, doesn’t it?

But the Heir has **_no such_** _prob_ le **m** s. I have all three; Power, Understanding, and perhaps greatest of all, Control.

And here is where we learn the root of everything that Rage represents. This is what my friends have yet to see for themselves.

Do you **_think_** it represents Death and Destruction? Of course not; such things are inherent to Doom, that sad Aspect of the End. Rage _is_ not **this**.

Perhaps you _think_ it means that fire, that heat of emotion, the bloodlust and battle-song that seems to infect those of the Aspect? No. The names of Sburb’s Aspects are strange things, and do not always represent what the name would indicate. These emotions are the purview of War, and perhaps a lesser facet of Hate. Rage  is **not** _this_.

So, I am sure you are saying, does it mean insanity? Is it the shattering of that fragile barrier between stability and instability? If you believe this, then you are more f _ooli_ sh than you appear.

After all, Insanity is one of Sburb’s favorite tools. It matters not the Aspect in which it takes hold; all Aspects deal with it equally. Rage **is** _not_ this.

No, it was that dear Witch who got it right. Not my o **wn, of _co_** _urs_ e; she is too _blin_ d to her own faults to have any **such succe** ss at her own quest, too **con ce**rned with me and mine. No, I speak of an alternate Witch of my own Aspect. She set it up so _beautifully_ , didn’t she? Rewriting the game code to engineer her own rise to Godhood, and in doing so, reasserting Control of her own mind; it was a perfect ploy.

But there is also the Knight, isn’t there? Plag ** _ued by h_** is rage, his own uncontrollable urge to jump into the fray, beyond reason or will; not until the end, until he was faced with tragedy, was he able to take Control of himself.

You saw the ** _m all, d_** idn’t you? The Maid, taken by the Game to assert its will. The Bard, lost to the tyrannical musings of blasphemous gods. The Page, driven only by the depths of his own self-loathing. And the Sylph.

Oh, the Sylph; wh _at an amazing fail_ ure to watch! To see a player who, by their own inherent nature, caused a session to be unwinnabl **e? Truly ast** ounding!

But surely, my **fri** **ends, you _see_** _the pattern_ **before** **you. Surely _you_** _ understand_, as I **do** **. Even _if_** _my team_ doe _sn’t_ _see it **yet, su**_ **rely you _do_**.

We are **_creat_** _ures wit **hout**_ Control.

And to _succ_ **eed** , we must find it.

I do not speak of the Maid, that tool of the Game, who was used to see the creation of a new world, at the cost of her own sense of self. Her session **was winn** able, but she did not win. Understand that; _she did not win_. She did not a ** _ttain Con_** trol.

That is the dan ** _ger of t_** his Game; that it can be won, and every player in it still **_lose_**.

But I am the Heir, **and that** means that I **Understand**. I know exactly the _Power_ that brews within me, and I  do _not_ **care**. Because I have  the only thing th _at_ matters; I have Control.

So tell me this, obs _erv_ **ers**.

Why can’t they see that?

Why _can’t_ **they** **_see ThAt?_**

**_WhY_ ** _ Can’T _ ** ThEy  _SeE_ ** _ ThAt?_

**_ W4Y C*N3T TH8Y 5%E TH&T? _ **

**_ NO.  _ **

**_ No.  _ **

_ No.  _

No. 

No.

I am in control.

You see? I am in control.

Can’t you see it?

The Knight had to see his teammate almost die to do that. The Witch had to die herself to attain it. And the Sylph never, ever found it. I have control.

I am in control.

They’ll see it.

My team has to see it. They have to.

I am the Heir of Rage, and my Quest is to Be, and in Being, Rise.

And I control my own fate.

They’ll all understand eventually.

They’ll unde _rs **taND.**_


	73. The Knight of Doom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the REAL Knight of Doom, who I am exceedingly happy with. 
> 
> Also I am still really jazzed about the Fanfic Rec on TV Tropes. It makes me so very inspired!

The world is burning.

Your green earth, your blue skies, your deep seas and high mountains, your hated school and loved library, your _home_ , is burning.

Everyone you ever knew is going to die, and it’s only by the whims of Fate that you will be one of the few alive. You can barely believe it.

Your server is pestering you, but you decide to ignore it for now. You have plenty of time. Minutes of it, according to the timer on that abominable machine. You can afford to wait, and watch the world burn.

The fiery stone falling from the heavens looks almost molten; the heat of atmospheric entry has turned the metal and stone of its composition a bright, cherry-red, like an oven’s element. The air itself is screaming with these molten messengers’ passage, and you wonder at the force of friction that is causing that hellish noise. Every so often, you feel a force hit you, as one of the larger stones impacts the ground at such a speed to cause shockwaves. In the distance, you watch a city start to collapse under its weight as it is barraged by meteors. Skyscrapers fall, and you know this sight is probably a common one, all around the world.

The world is burning, and you will never forget the sight of it. You’re going to burn the image to your retinas, like a branding iron straight into your neurons. You’re going to frame this image in molten fucking gold, set it on a pedestal of cherry-red stone, and drench it in the blood of every fucking person who’s died today, so that whenever you speak, whenever you fight, whenever you sleep, whenever you open your god damned _eyes_ , you will remember.

You answer the pestering, now. It’s time to get into this game.

Your sprite is strobe-lighting beside you, flashing bright white and green. Its serpentine tongue keeps flickering, in and out, and you idly wonder if it’s in Morse code as you walk up the steps to where the last of your machines is located. Your friend is frantic, and worried, scared that you aren’t going to make it in time, afraid at your calm demeanor in the face of all this chaos, but that just shows that she doesn’t understand.

You aren’t calm. You’re angry.

Angry doesn’t seem a strong enough word, so you begin pulling other words out of your head to describe it. Mad. Enraged. Infuriated. Choleric. Livid.

Wrathful.

There you go.

You reach the top of the steps, and enter the room where you will create your entry item. You’ve determined that Serpentsprite’s tongue flickering isn’t Morse code. You look out the window, and you see a meteor that seems to be quite a bit larger than any of the others that have fallen so far.

It’s heading straight for you. Surprise, surprise.

You use your totem, and create your entry item. It’s a figure of a man, kneeling with his head on a chopping block.

You almost laugh, but you resist that temptation. Then you pull out the woodcutting axe from your strife specibus. You’d picked that specibus as a joke, years ago; a bookish shut-in wasn’t going to have many chances to cut wood.

Well. You suppose that’s still true.

You ready your axe, and think of heroes of mythology. You think of their mighty weapons, those swords used by brave, mythic figures in the face of evil. You think of Durendal, of Kusanagi, of Caladbolg.

You think of Excalibur, and you know that you will never wield such a weapon in your quest.

Yours isn’t the fate of a Knight, a glorious hero on a holy quest.

Yours is the fate of a killer, and your weapon will be the headsman’s axe.

Eventually, you’d find the beings responsible for the fate of your world. And when you did, heads were going to roll.

You bring the axe down, and the whistle of the blade through the air combines with the scream of the stone that is coming for you, and together they sound almost like words, whispering in your ear.

_Come, witness my judgment, the Executioner says. And know that it is inevitable._


	74. The Prince of Doom

This world has become a sad place.

Once it was alive; the air was clear, the water was blue, the earth was green.

But now, the air is filled with ash, the water has dried to dust, and the earth is nothing but sand, blowing in the dry, arid wind.

Ash, dust, and sand. This is what your home is, now.

It is pretty damn depressing. Almost as depressing as your new friend.

Well, kind of friend, kind of enemy. Is it strange to think that he’s both at once? You almost wonder what that would be like, if friends and enemies were the same thing, but that’s a stupid train of thought that’s probably brought on by extreme overexposure.

You wondered, once, if Gods could die of starvation or thirst. Apparently not, but they can go sun-crazy.

You wonder if your friend-enemy can starve. He’s either got a stash of food and drink he won’t show you, or that damn ring he’s wearing is keeping him sated.

You hope it’s the latter; if he was hiding food, you’d probably just have to kill him.

You ask him if he’s been hiding food, and he tells you off in his insufferably calm way. That’s stupid, he says, as he looks at the sky. Where would I put it, he says, and you say that you have a few ideas, and none of them are pretty, and he glares at you.

Bugging each other is about all you guys can do, now. It’s not like you’re going anywhere.

It’s unfortunate that neither of you guys can fly. You might be able to go somewhere if that was true. You remember your friends all zooming around on Derse and Prospit like a bunch of zany sparrows or something, and you feel a little sad. Your dreamself was never able to fly, and damn it all, your Godself can’t either.

You just suppose that it’s fortunate that your frenemy can’t either, despite the ring’s prototyping. Him with wings would have been even more of a terror to fight; it was enough of a battle to get him exiled as it was.

And in the end, it still took some sacrifice.

You think of your friends, and you hope they’re doing alright. You don’t want them wasting too much time on you; they’ve got bigger things to worry about, and you think that maybe, you were always meant to do this.

After all, this penultimagent beside you would have killed you all if he’d had the chance. But now he’s gone, and never again will his spear threaten your friends. You averted the doom of your session, and that feels right.

You destroyed Doom. It sounds a lot grander than ‘you grappled him until the meteor took both of you back to old, ruined Earth’, doesn’t it? It sounds more mythic.

It makes you sound like kind of a hero.

You think of your Brother, who wanted to get into politics. You think of your old dreams, of being Governor or Senator or President, and changing the world.

You wanted to grasp the world, but it crumbled to ash, dust, and sand before you could.

The Demonic Destroyer gives you an aside glance, and mutters that you should probably stop crying like a little baby, and you smack him and tell him to shut his lying mouth. Frenemies to the end, you both are.

What strange circumstances these are. Weeks ago, you were at trying to kill each other. Now? Now it just sort of seems a waste.

It’s not like there’s anyone else around.

You look up to the sky, and you hope that the rest of your friends have taken you for dead. You don’t want them here. They have their own life to live, their own world to rule.

And you suppose that you have yours.

The sky is full of ash, the oceans have become dust, the wind blows the sands of the earth, and you are the last human in the world, which means it’s all yours. What a sad prize.

You stand by your companion, and listen to the wind, and think of the last time you saw your friends, and you think of the words that came to you as you fell to this ruined Earth.

_Go, leave my realm, the Ruler says. For it is mine to rule, and mine alone._


	75. The Seer of Doom

The most important thing to remember is that the Game is just a game. No more, no less.

Yes, it’s a game where you can die. Yes, it’s a game that destroys worlds. Yes, it’s a game that will create a universe.

But it’s a game, nonetheless, and realizing that is the first step to beating it.

The odds were never good, but you can make them better by knowing the facts.

So here they are. Here is your goal. Here are your obstacles. Here is what you are.

This is how you start putting together your equation.

You’ve always been a bit of a math nut, you’ll admit, but this is for real, and this is how you’ll win.

You have to beat the obstacles, and the key to that is simple; know their strengths.

So you decide to give an arbitrary numbers so you can set up the equation. An Imp equals 1. Simple enough.

Through trial and error (mostly error), you discover that you entered the game at about 3. This discovery came about quite simply; you easily defeated one imp, you marginally defeated two, and you barely defeated three.

And when four came along, you decided not to push your luck.

From then, the equation became simple. When your side equaled the strength of the enemy’s side, then it was up to luck. And because luck was now a controllable variable, thanks to the powers of Light, most even fights were easily winnable.

The numbers keep coming together, in a vast Equation that runs itself through your head in every moment. No other player could possibly begin to decipher its workings as you can, and even you have difficulty figuring out all of its meanings and rules, but you do what you must. Players begin to level, and as they do, their value in the Equation rises. Powers develop, and they are calculated and added to the Equation. Relationships come together and break apart, and the Equation changes. Denizens are challenged, and the Equation changes.

An arrow prepares to fly. The odds aren’t good, but Breath powers can even the odds. An arrow flies, and hits its target.

A player prepares to open a tomb. The odds are good that the tomb contains a monster, based on previously discovered data. The player is forewarned, and avoids ambush.

An Archagent offers his assistance. The odds aren’t good that he means it, based on the profile you have formed on him. A betrayal is avoided.

And the Equation forms ever on and on. It grows in complexity like a living thing, and with every change you see how it all wants to come together.

Until one day, it does. The final unknown variable resolves itself (because he never would have loved you, silly obsessed girl that you are), and the Equation becomes clear.

Your team will fail.

The facts are known. The logic is sound. The numbers are clear. The Equation has spoken.

The Game has decided to become unbeatable.

But this cannot be the end; after all, this is merely a Game, and any game is, by definition, beatable. It’s just a matter of removing the right variables. It takes time, a lot of time of meditation and reflection on the subtleties of the Equation, but you are able to find it easily enough. After all, numbers have always been sort of your thing.

And the answer is extremely predictable.

The first thing you do is write a letter. It’s an important letter. Then you tell your players the new plan. You tell them what you have discovered, and you tell them the variable they have to remove.

They aren’t surprised to hear that they have to face the Black Queen.

You set up an ambush; it is surprisingly simple, seeing as she is a creature of habit. The ambush sways the fight a little in your favor, but not much; her power alone skyrockets over 9000 in the equation. You decide not to tell your friends that fact; they rely too much on memes for their humor as it is.

You all face her, and she faces you, and when the battle starts, it goes exactly as the Equation dictated it would. She strikes, they dodge. They attack, she shrugs it off. She retaliates, they misdirect. The battle goes on and on, eight flies biting at a giant, until it all changes.

She moves, and strikes for the Knight.

The Knight trips against the wall.

And the Queen moves in for the kill.

And finds you.

The blade is cold in your gut, for a moment, before it suddenly becomes fiery, fiery hot, as every nerve in your stomach begins to fire. The odds would dictate that you only have a few seconds to live.

They’re good seconds, though. You look at the Knight, and smile; even if he could never have loved you, you still loved him. You can’t quite decipher the look in his eyes, but you like what you see regardless. You hope he won’t be too sad; his team will need him. And after you’re gone, he’ll find the letter you left him. The one that says that you knew this was going to happen.

Because it was never the Queen that needed to be removed from the Equation.

It was you.

And now that you have been removed from the Equation, the game is winnable.

Your seconds slip away, like sand from an hourglass, and your dying thoughts are of the Knight, and of words from a long forgotten dream.

_Come, don’t you see, the Oracle says. This is the way it was always going to be._


	76. The Bard of Doom

Go, go, GO. This is way the world works.

Going, going, GONE. This is the way the world ends.

Oh how sad, how sad it is, this beautiful world, gone. Never more will you sit and watch the clouds roll by, actors playing their parts in a vast tragedy, lit by the moonlight. Never again will you paint your dreams on the walls of your hive, every picture in another color of the spectrum. Never will your eyes wander the desert sands and dream of the words written upon them, in silicon whispers and crystalline song.

The world is gone, gone, gone, in sweet fire. How sad it is.

But isn’t there a beauty to be had, regardless, in these new worlds? After all, you have a new sky to watch, a brand new tragedy with all new players lit by the soft light of Skaia. You have new dreams to paint on new walls, painted in the colors of consorts and pawns and monsters. You have new vistas for your eyes to wander, new words upon them to read, and new whispers to hear in your ear.

Ah, yes, they whisper so. They whisper and whisper and whisper, sweet nothings, like a lover in an embrace. You wonder what their embrace might feel like, and you feel as if you’ll know it soon enough.

They have so many arms to embrace you with, do they not?

Go, go, GO. That is the way the world used to work, and this world is no different. There are so many things to do.

Going, going, GONE. That is the way the world ended, and this will end just the same. There are so many things to lose.

Your world ended in sweet fire, but that isn’t the fate of this one, is it? No, of course not. Going, going, GONE, but not in flame.

You have a feeling these worlds will end much more coldly than your own.

Some said the world would end in fire. And you had tasted of desire. And in the end, Fate favored fire. But you will have to perish twice. And you know much of hate and ice. Enough to know ice will suffice.

You always hated Troll Frost, but if you butcher his words enough, you think they will do for the occasion.

After all, you have to die to rise. And the world has already ended in fire.

You might as well end it in ice, and bring the whole tragedy to its inevitable end.

Go, go, GO. That is the way the world works, until something comes to disrupt the system from its Newtonian path.

Going, going, GONE. That is the Truth you will bring to the world. Desire and Fire have had their day, but it’s time for Hate and Ice to rule.

After all, the whispers are such cold things, compared to the rage of the falling stone. And they do so love to hate.

And you think you might be running out of paint, anyway. It’s time to visit your friends.

The first is reluctant to give his fair share, but you expected that; trolls are such greedy things, and they don’t understand beauty like you do. Like the whispers do. But he gives it up, in the end.

Each of them gives it up, in time. Color by color by color. Go, go, GO. Going, going, GONE.

They’re all gone, pretty soon.

You’re ready to paint your dreams, now.

You find your canvas on your world. It’s flat, of course, like a big stone table, emblazoned with your special symbol. You find a unique irony in its appearance; both skull and gear, as if to say you are merely a Cog in the ways of Death.

You begin your work, using every shade your friends could give you. You have just enough to finish it.

What is it, you ask? Well, you don’t ask. You stopped asking a long time ago. The whispers don’t like you asking, so you just paint. Does it have a point?

Does it need one?

You finish your masterpiece, except that’s a god damn lie. Your masterpiece is yet to come.

So maybe this can be your masterpiece until then. That’s probably alright.

But it’s time for your new masterpiece. Your real one, unlike your current fake one.

Because the picture you drew is a picture of the future, and that’s what makes it a fake masterpiece. Or it would, if you bothered to ask.

Did you know that if you mixed all of the colors together, you get a sort of sludgy brown? Mix a little ash in there, and it’s just like the color of the End.

And your picture is just one big sheet of the End color. Every square inch of your bed, painted in Death.

You take your life, not in fire or ice, but rather more mundanely. A small dagger, actually.

And this is your first death.

You Rise, and the whispers are now songs, and the songs are now screams, and the screams are now colors, and the colors show the End, in the Death color of sludgy brown, just like your clothes.

It’s time for the world to end in Ice. Sgrub has been outmaneuvered, this time. The whispers have won.

And you’ve won with them.

You paint a picture with the remains of worlds, and you sing a song with the Skaia’s dying screams, and you watch the vast eons of space slowly, slowly decay into a rotten, beautiful brown, and as it starts to get colder and colder, you have the words that own reality in your mind, and you say them to the only audience who ever mattered.

_Go, go, be GONE, the Reaper says. In fire or ice or madness, you will all be gone in time._


	77. The Witch of Doom

Do it, Witch.

_Do it._

It’s easy, isn’t it? Just pull the trigger. How many muscles have to move to do that? Less than it takes to smile, you think.

Do it.

…

You can’t do it.

You put the gun down, and wrap your hands around your knees. Why is it so hard? It’s easier than smiling. It should be simple.

It’ll be anytime, now, and then you’re going to die. And you can’t pull the damn trigger.

…

You are of Doom, and that means you know things. Important things. Frightening things.

You’ve always known things. Always. That was your gift. You’d call it a curse, too, if that wasn’t so much of a cliché. And it helped, in its own way. It helped as much as it hurt.

And it did hurt. So very much.

You were blessed with the ability to know Death. You were cursed to see its shadow hang over the dying. You were gifted with the ability to see Fate’s final judgment.

You were made to see the Time of their End.

You pick up the gun. Anytime, now. Anytime.

Ends are a strange thing. You’ve told people before about their Times, and the few who listened did everything to avoid it. It always came to them in the End, though.

That didn’t stop you from trying to tell people, though. They had to know. They had to _try_.

Why else would you know the Times, if not to try and avoid them?

That all changed with Father. You told him it was coming. You couldn’t know how, but you could know _when_ , and that was all that mattered, right? Even if no one else could ever fix their fates, if everyone else who had tried had failed, your Father could do it. He could do anything.

In the end, he faced his death head-on. He didn’t even flinch.

It was then that you realized the truth; that there was no avoiding your Fate.

You could only choose it.

So, when your Time was close, you decided to choose your own fate.

And now you can’t pull the trigger.

You pick up the gun again. You put to it to your temple. Pull the trigger, Witch. Pull it.

_Pull it._

Anytime now, and something will kill you. Better your bullet than _His_ blade.

Anytime now.

You feel the stone below you, smooth and comforting. You breathe in the air, scented by the jasmine flowers that fill the plateau around you. You see the stars, dancing like living things above you.

You have a destiny. And that destiny is to choose your End.

You may not be able to choose your Time, but your Death is yours to control.

Your Father would be proud.

It’s fast. And it’s easier than smiling.

You smile anyway.

…

And in the explosion of light and sound that follows, in the tumult of rainbow force and rising music, in your Rising, you hear soft words, spoken by a familiar voice.

_Come, hear my song, the Singer says. It is a sad song, I will admit, but I do so love to sing it._


	78. The Rogue of Doom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to take this moment to say how much I love the Audio Version of my story. It is full of awesome, mostly from MeleeMage but also from a couple of others who are starting to pitch in as well. 
> 
> Here's the link, and if any of you want to do your own versions, please, post it on the forum! I WILL LISTEN TO THEM. 
> 
> http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?45317-The-Game-and-Those-Who-Play-Audio-Edition
> 
> Next is Sollux!

Tick, tock. The time is coming.

The sky is bright. Usually the Medium is as black as space, but now that everything is in place, it’s becoming bright. Beautiful, in its own way. And so very, very loud. So loud that you can’t determine what is sounds like. It just sounds like… noise.

Who knew the unmaking of reality would be so… picturesque?

The Rhythm Plateau is rising, with you on it. Your legs are hanging off of it, dangling in the air, and the whole platform is rumbling with the clockwork workings of this grand device.

You thought it strange, at first, that this structure even existed. One big reset button, just waiting for someone to push it.

But you think that maybe you were always going to push this button.

After all, it was always going to be this way.

You look at your pocket watch once more. A gift from a friend, who died. Time was hers, but hers ran out days ago. This is the last bit of her you have. Tick, tock. The time is almost here.

It’s all going according to plan. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true; the plan sort of fell through the cracks somewhere around the time your world ended. Then it fell even deeper into the pit when Noir started killed his own queen. Then it plunged into the deepest circle of hell right about when the Witch died.

Now you’re working on a new plan, but it sort of requires you to unmake reality as you know it. There’s still plenty of time for this plan to discover a new level of hell to fall into, though.

Okay, fine, maybe the plan is a little fucked up. But there’s not much else to do. All your hope for the future died with her.

And this way, you can still save most of your friends.

The Heir has a way out. It’s a good idea.

But ideas involving massive interdimensional windows usually are, aren’t they?

They wanted you to come. All of the rest of the players. The rest of your team. Even those damn trolls. But you told them you had to make the Scratch happen. Reality had to unmake itself, and you had to make sure it did it properly. No point in this whole thing if it tripped over the finish line, after all. They didn’t like it. Of course they didn’t like it. But you made them go anyway. This was the way it had to be.

This was always how it was going to be.

You didn’t tell them the truth, of course. The Scratch doesn’t need your help. It’s an autonomous machine; once it’s started, it does its own work. But they didn’t know that. And you didn’t tell them. Because, for some reason, you can’t go with them. Not now.

Somehow, unmaking seems a better fate than living. Is that strange? Perhaps.

It’s hard, being alive. It’s hard, and nobody understands.

The others will live their lives in whatever new reality is forthcoming. Maybe they’ll win. You aren’t sure how. But their road isn’t your road.

Their way isn’t yours.

You look at your watch once more. Her watch. Her last gift to you.

Tick, tock. Only a scant few seconds, now.

You look back up. Skaia’s getting closer and closer, now. The pitch-black of the Medium is peeling away into the bright-white of the Void. Everywhere you look, something is turning to nothing. It’s like seeing the opposite of white, and also the opposite of black, all at once.

The world unmakes itself around you.

Tick, tock. Do it now.

You click the button on the watch. In three seconds, the Scratch will finish its duties. And you’ll be finished with it.

But her last gift to you can make those seconds last for a long, long time.

Tick, tock. The time has come.

And it’s beautiful. Kind of like her.

She’d have appreciated the view, you think.

The cacophony of the Void has slowed, and the lights hold themselves in the deep black, and the tearing white Void has come to a leisurely crawl, and in the deep humming of the last bits of reality dying, you hear the words you might have said to your friends, if you had decided to explain why you wanted to stay.

_Go, find your own way, the Traveler says. This one was lost to you, long ago._


	79. The Mage of Doom

You deserve every moment of this.

Look at you. _Look at you_. You’re pathetic. You’re a miserable wretch. You’re a weakling who couldn’t keep her from using you. A weakling who couldn’t keep your friend alive.

God, it still hurts so much to think about her. About what you did to her. Someone else might be at fault, but it was still your sick, twisted power that did the deed.

You remember it well. You remember it too well; one of the downsides of being a genius. You remember that _bitch_ taking your mind. She didn’t even falter; it was like stealing sweets from a wiggler. Sometimes you were able to stop her, but this time…

This time it all ended in rubble and blood. _Her_ blood.

You missed her so much. She had been everything to you, _everything,_ and you killed her. Nobody blamed you, but they should have. God, they _should have._ Why not? You were the one who was too weak.

Your blood has granted you all this power, and you can’t even fucking control it when it matters. What kind of troll are you? A miserable one, that’s what kind.

Worthless.

And even when she came back, she didn’t really. She was nothing but a ghost, dead in every way that mattered. All because of you.

But no. No. No, that wasn’t true at all, was it? It was Sgrub. _Sgrub_ brought her back from the dead. Sgrub forced her from her rest, into the mockery of life she became. All because it had its stupid god damn purpose it had to fulfill, and it had to use her to do it.

Why did you help make that god damn game? Why didn’t you just… delete it? Or never work on it at all?

Maybe it was because she was the one to ask you. Maybe you couldn’t resist her, even now.

Maybe it was because Sgrub knew exactly who it needed to get you to make it.

God damn it all, you hate this game. You loathe it. You wish it had never existed.

Except… except it brought her back, in a way.

It fixed your mistake, almost.

So you made the Game, and you destroyed the world. Sgrub destroyed the world, to be specific; you were only a tool, just like every other player in your team.

Just a tool.

But the Game had given you opportunities, and you had power, so you used it. You feel right in saying that you were one of the best players in the whole game. No one was stronger than you. Nobody.

The Game might have been using you, but maybe you were starting to figure it out, starting to find out how to use it in return. And why not? You’re a genius. You put together this god damn game. Of fucking course you could figure it out.

Maybe you can even find something akin to love again. She might bring her share of issues, including a suitor who needs to be taken down a notch or two, but she’s worth it.

And bringing that bastard down a peg is a joy all in itself.

But then the Game screwed you over, and you find yourself back where you started; at the bottom. You thought you could master the Game, but it only mastered you. And now you’re all going to die.

Maybe it’s not all bad, though. She’s still here. Everyone is still here, in some way or another, and that means something, right? Even if that damn suitor is still sticking his nose into your business.

And here he is again, challenging you. What a fool. The Game might have taken your victory, but you still had power. What did this chump have?

God, you thought it’d be an easy win.

He defeats you, and he takes your eyes, and he takes your love, and he takes any bit of self-esteem you might have had left.

This is always the way it was going to be, wasn’t it? This was always going to be your fate. You were always going to have so much potential, and to waste it.

But maybe there’s one last thing you can do. One last ditch plan to save the survivors of a murder rampage.  And you’re the most important part of it.

You almost told them no. You almost told them that you couldn’t do it. That you were powerless. But that wouldn’t have been true. You’ve always had power. You’ve only lacked the ability, the control, to keep it from destroying everything you ever held dear.

And with this… the only thing it’ll take, this time, is something you want to give.

So you stand in the dark, your blind eyes seeing nothing. Your friends are next to you, and you hear their gasps as they see the beacon that will guide you to your destination. You can’t see it, but you can feel it in your blood, visceral and churning.

The truth of your existence has always been thus; that your power carried a terrible price. But now it’s a price you want to pay.

So you call it up, one last time. You’ve said goodbye, in your own way. And it should be sad. But is it strange to think that you feel nothing but happiness, now? This is something you can do.

So you do it.

And it is fucking _magnificent._

Your makeshift chariot move as fast as light, pinpointed towards the only safe route through the deep dark that lies outside of reality. And, as your power starts to rip through your body, boiling your blood and tearing your muscles and pulverizing your bones and tearing your voice out of your lips in an infinitely mindless scream, you’re laughing inside.

Your brain tears itself apart, and yellow blood runs from your eyes, and your screams start to sound like the words that you told them, in your own way, before you paid your final price.

_Come, watch me play, the Maestro says. It’ll be a performance you’ll never forget._


	80. The Sylph of Doom

Stop shaking.

Please stop shaking.

Please.

This is the way it had to be.

You are the Sylph, and your Quest is to…

No, those aren’t the words of Doom. Those belonged to Rage. What are your words?

You are the Sylph, and you know Doom’s true nature. It is the…

No, that’s not it either. That’s Time. And you don’t know Doom’s true nature, anyhow. You aren’t sure it can be known.

What were your words?

Once upon a time, there was a girl who…

Damn it, no, that’s Space.

Why can’t you remember?

You are the Sylph, and you haven’t figured it out yet.

Sburb grants you these titles as a form of prophecy. The Title tells you what your Destiny is to be, what yours Powers are, and what Obstacles you are fated to try to overcome. And if you can’t figure out what your title means, then how can you know what you have to do?

What is your destiny, Sylph of Doom?

No, no, the Questions belong to Hope, not Doom.

But it’s a question you have to answer, isn’t it? You have to know, so your team can win. You can’t afford to lose.

The moment you entered the game, you knew you had to know.

So you looked and looked and looked. Your Planet, filled with black obsidian spires and deep, dark pits, held the beginnings of the answer, you were sure. So you read every word inscribed on every obelisk, and you explored every pit for the secrets they might hold. You were stymied, you will admit, by the locked doors that kept you from the most important dungeons, but those were soon taken care of. You didn’t have the time to solve the puzzles, so you found the most explosive thing you could find and alchemized it with a holly branch, and the resulting magic wand made for a convenient shortcut through the puzzle doors.

But the locked dungeons of your Planet only gave you a taste of the full answer, so you left LOSAP and went to Prospit. You weren’t a Prospit dreamer, but your friend told you of the visions of the future he was granted by the clouds, and you think that maybe they will have answers.

And you do see things, but it’s all worthless gibberish and static. Sometimes you’ll see a wisp of a cloud that has the barest hint of something, and when you do, you try to clear the sky of the meaningless clouds so you can see it. You spend days clearing the sky of the worthless images to find the important ones, and you know you might be scaring the soldiers fighting on Skaia with your wand’s bright white explosions and beams, but you hope they’ll understand. You have to find the truth.

And the truth isn’t to be found in Skaia’s clouds, so you go to Derse.

This is where your dreamself sleeps, and she’s still there, gently snoring. You haven’t woken up here yet, so you had to come in person, and now that you’re here, you can listen to the Whispers.

The Whispers have no meaning, at first. For hours, you sit and stare into the vast darkness of the void and strain to understand. When you find that you can’t, you start to repeat the sounds you hear, hoping that maybe, just maybe, saying them will help you understand.

You speak, unknowing of what you say, for a very long time. Dersites come and go, and some seem almost as if they want something from you, but you have no time for them, and a look is enough to send them running. You have words to speak, and a language to learn, and you have no time for these constructs.

But try as you might, Speaking does not bring Understanding. The Void has painted your skin grey, and perhaps you find it difficult to speak your old, normal words, and the white light emanating from your wand looks different, now, in a way you cannot pin, but the Whispers still have no answer for you.

You’ve failed. You have no answer to that most important question you have to answer.

What is Doom?

You don’t know.

But you go to your leader, your Prospit dreamer friend, to tell him of what you have figured out, as little and miniscule as it is. You find him staring at a Skaian landscape that seems clearer than usual; the clouds are few and almost sickly, now, and you wonder why.

He turns to you, and his eyes widen, and he backs away.

He _backs away_.

Why is he backing away?

You start to tell him what you know, but the words are hard in coming, thick and oily on your tongue, and something like white static keeps flashing around you. It makes it difficult to speak, to think, and he _backs away_.

Why is he shaking?

You tell him to stop.

Stop shaking.

Please stop shaking.

Please?

This is the way it had to be, because you had to try to know. Didn’t you?

You had to try, even if you failed.

But he _backs away_ , and he _shakes_ , and he says something that sounds like pleading, and the static is getting louder.

You let loose a flash of eldritch white on a nearby wall to try and snap him out of it, but it only makes it worse. Why won’t he stop shaking?

Can’t he understand?

We have to know what Doom is.

You say those words, and they clear your mouth without oil or static, and he says, as he stares at you with wide eyes, that he knows what it is, now.

He says you’ve showed it to him.

The thick-oil-white-static noise fills your ears and your lips and your eyes and you realize that the truth of your existence; that you now live within Doom, used by it and using it like a swimmer in the ocean, and that you have helped your team see its Truth.

And its Truth comes to you in words of white snow on black oil that fills your mind, and when you say them it’s not in English, but it’s perfectly understandable nonetheless, because these are not the words of Rage or Time or Space or Hope but _your_ words. And you were always going to figure them out, eventually.

_Go, show them the truth, the Preacher says. Speak these words so that all will know the way of things._


	81. The Page of Doom

Principles are a difficult thing to hold onto. Your Cousin taught you that. They’re difficult because that’s what makes them matter. A morality untested by adversity is worthless; it’s the stress of real life, of temptation, of hardship, that takes the raw matter of an ideal and turns it into steel.

They are difficult, and that’s why they’re important. And they’ve never been tested like they are being tested now.

Life is a precious, precious thing. Your Cousin taught you that as well. And taking it away from the living is an evil thing.

By that logic, you are evil, as well. You found the Game, after all. You started it all.

Four kids decided to play a Game, and a world ended in fire.

Principles are a hard thing to hold, and they are hardest now, when you have an ocean’s worth of blood on your hands, but you try just the same. You committed genocide on your own people, even if you didn’t mean it. Even if you didn’t know what would happen, their deaths are on your hands.

And if you have any say in the matter, you’ll never kill again.

This puts you at almost immediate odds with your friends. You love them, dearly, but this is something you have to make them understand, and they seem almost willfully blind to the truth.

It’s just a game, they say, and these are merely constructs. Consorts, denizens, monsters, carapaces; what do they matter? They’re just bits of code.

Just bits of code.

How can they believe that?

How can they look at these creatures and see nothing but programs?

The consorts are strange beings, yes, but they are alive, are they not? Simple, but they have mythologies and personalities and culture and hopes and dreams and feelings. How can they not look at these creatures and see living, breathing beings?

Of course, they see that they’re alive. They’ve admitted that. That’s why they help them. That’s why they’re doing their Quests.

God, they can be so blind.

If the consorts are alive, then what of their Denizen? What of the people of Derse, of Prospit? What of the King and the Queen? What of those so-called ‘monsters’ that hinder them?

These are creatures alive, every one, and the Game expects you to kill them. It expects its Players to be able to rationalize their own principles away, to pretend that every Imp and Basilisk and Ogre and Lich and every other creature that faces you is nothing but code.

How can you look these things in the eyes and say that?

You can’t.

Sburb wants its Players to be killers, but you will have no more blood on your hands.

No more.

So you play a different Game. For most it is a Game of war and bloodshed and death, but you will not play by its rules, so you play a game of stealth and deception and misdirection. The enemy cannot try to kill what isn’t there, so you are never there to be found. You alchemize items that will help you; help you fly, and run, and jump, and disappear from sight.

And you learn, because that is your quest.

Games can be cheated, and you will have to cheat to win this without more bloodshed. Let the other players play their game of death and horror.

They are your friends no longer, and if they won’t see the truth, then you can’t be bothered with them. You ignore their texts. You don’t even bother to use your computer, anymore.

You play your Game, and you begin to Learn, because you have to win.

You have to.

But the clues are hard in coming. When the Game even uses its loopholes and paradoxes to do its will, it is difficult to find ways around it. And there are monsters everywhere, swarms of them, and your own promise makes it difficult to circumvent them. But there has to be a way. Doesn’t there?

Your Quest is a long one, and you have long since stopped caring about the others of your team, but the evidence of their own bloody Quest is undeniable in the landscapes of the Planets. All four of your planets are war-torn and desolate, now, even your own, though you haven’t seen the conflicts that did the damage. You have seen great armies of the enemy on the horizons, but they are fighting far-off wars from your own, perhaps fighting against your own warrior teammates.

They are nothing but killers, now, and you weep for them even as you despise what they have become.

You are on the trail of another clue when you find them. Your house looks nothing like it had before; your server has built it into some sort of fortress. And it is under siege.

Someone, or something, is throwing around rainbow fire in great swathes and ribbons, and great tar-black tentacles are appearing from the clouds above and tearing from the earth below and wrecking through the army that has the fortress under siege. As you watch, a ripping explosion of ivory-white light detonates around the fortress. It’s war, there, and even as the shock of all of this death and violence shakes you to the core, you wonder why they aren’t running.

Why aren’t your friends running? _(Are they your friends now? They were nothing to you, so shortly before.)_

You check your computer, which you’ve ignored for so long, and find the most recent message from your server.

_You win the Game your way._

_We’ll watch your back._

And suddenly the desolation and the war and the armies make sense.

Because, though you tried to cut away from your friends, your server could always tell where you were.

The armies of the Game, the army you didn’t want to harm, have been swarming your worlds, and your friends have kept them from you so you could do what you felt you had to do.

They’ve been protecting you while you tried to win the Game your own way.

A flash of light appears over the battlefield, not rainbow-fire or tar-tentacles or ivory-blasts, but something else completely, and suddenly where there was once a fortress, there is now rubble.

The armies disperse, slowly, and the other-light creature disappears from the sky, and, bit by bit, the noise of war turns to silence punctuated only by the soft noise of the creatures still roaming the rubble.

You want to go down there. You want to find them. They might be still alive, right?

But you know the Truth.

They are dead, and the blood is on your hands. Because you didn’t want to fight.

The Truth of the Game is that Death is necessary. Nobody gets through it without blood on their hands.

You only get to choose whose blood it is. And you chose when you put your ideals above your friends.

In the end, you learned nothing of Doom.

The wind blows through the rubble, and you imagine them lying there, and in your mind they’re speaking the words you never allowed yourself to hear.

_Come, heed my lessons, the Teacher says. For these are the truths we all must learn._


	82. The Heir of Doom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: LONGEST CHAPTER YET

Oh.

Hello there. I almost didn’t notice you. Come, now, don’t be shy. I don’t bite. And you come at a prodigious time! Sit, stay a while, and we’ll have a chat. Won’t that be lovely?

I suppose you’re getting rather used to people like me, hmm? The ones who can see you, that is. I wonder, how strange do the others find it?

Do they find you a frightening concept? Does it scare them that you are witness to their failures, their triumphs, their loves and hates?

Strange as it may sound, I suspect that few of those who see you find you frightening. After all, all you can do is watch, and comment. True interaction is beyond you, is it not? And while that might still scare many of the Players, we Heirs are made of sterner stuff. Fewer things frighten us, I would think. And me, I see the innocence in your minds, the curiosity, and I know you are only here because you find us interesting! And as something akin to a telepath, I can assure you I know something of innocent curiosity.

Perhaps, then, the other Heirs find you annoying? You are, after all, watchers of our tales, and if you did not frighten us, it is surely possible that you could annoy us. And it would be so easy to ignore you, after all. To simply pretend you weren’t there. As it is, you are stuck as mere watchers of our tales, but at least there is a fraction of us who can address you directly, to help you connect to our exciting tales of madness and power and love and success. And so easily, we Heirs could deny you that tiny bit of connection that the Game allows, simply by turning our attentions elsewhere.

But no. We are many things, we Heirs, and one of those things is that we are, in our own ways, compassionate to others. Or self-centered enough to want to preen to an audience. Or desperate enough for any possible attention we can garner. Sometimes we are even mixtures thereof!

I will let you guess which one fits me while I continue prattling on.

So, if those other Heirs did not find you frightening or annoying, I have to wonder what they _did_ think of you.

I have my suspicions, of course, but I will let you ponder the thought while I rocket onto an entirely different train of thought completely. Watch my thoughts fly, like a jetpacked player into his inevitable doom!

It is, in fact, Doom that I wish to speak of now. Such a fascinating concept, truly, but a _grim_ one as well, isn’t it? Truly, it could be one of the saddest!

I think this is because it is so very sneaky about its workings. Rage is another contender for the saddest Aspect, of course, but it fails if only because it is so obvious in its workings. You know exactly how a Rage player is going to go bad, after all.

But a Doom player always hits you in ways you don’t expect.

Oh, Void? How silly. Void isn’t sad! It’s just as sneaky, but in a good way! No, Void can be almost absurdly happy, in the long term. Still not quite as happy as Breath, but that is neither here nor there.

Oh, look at me, going off on a tangent like that! The point is, Doom is sneakily sad. That means that figuring it out becomes quite the sticky situation!

That is where you come in, my friends.

You see, I’m trying to solve a puzzle. But before I can answer it, I have to know something very important.

And I need to know what you know.

Come now, you know what I need. No? Surely you can guess.

Come, darlings, can’t you give a poor, desperate girl a guess?

Hmm. You don’t know? Spoilsports.

I need, of course, the Words.

Surely you know what I speak of. It has been the one unifying constant of our dark, sneaky Aspect, and it is the part that I believe holds the secret I need.

I am the Heir, dears, and that means that my destiny is to wield the highest power of my Aspect. But to do that, I need to know Doom’s secrets, and for that I require the Words.

Surely you remember them? Every one of them heard it in the defining moments of their stories. Don’t you remember them? Haven’t you wondered what they meant?

Haven’t you wondered who spoke them? Of course you have; I can see that much in your thoughts.

It’s true, the Heroes believed they were speaking it, often, but we know that isn’t true now, don’t we?

No, it was not the Heroes who spoke them, or imagined them, my darlings. I suspect you know the answer, however.

Fate is such an interesting concept, isn’t it?

No, no, this isn’t another tangent. It is highly related to our discussion, I assure you!

After all, Fate is one half of the Path that Sburb guides its Players on. The other half is Luck, as I am sure you well know; the order of Fate and the chaos of Luck both add up to the totality of the Path.

And as you also must know, Luck doesn’t matter! Because Luck is a concept that can be guided and controlled, which goes against the very concept of Chaos.

But here is one of the truest truths there is, my dear listeners.

Fate doesn’t matter either!

For as surely as Luck can be controlled, Fate can be cheated! And if the set road of Order can be changed by our whims, than surely it means as little as a Chaos that can be controlled!

I am getting to the point, such as it were, don’t worry.

You see, the defining trait of Doom is Death. And what is Death but an End?

Ah, but that’s simple semantics! For it to matter, we have to go deeper.

Doom is Death, and Death is the End, but the End of what?

Why, it’s the end of our Fate. Are you starting to see?

Death is the end of us all, eventually. That is the truth that normal humans have to live with.

And even us mighty Players are bound by Death. We may sometimes Rise into Godhood, and sometimes our ghosts can flit amongst the dream bubbles of the Farthest Reach, but all Gods die eventually. And ghosthood is just ghosthood. It isn’t life.

But if Fate can be cheated, than that means that Death can, as well!

Do you understand now? Do you?

To master my Aspect, to learn my truest power, will be to cheat Fate at its final game! To never die! Can’t you see it?

But for me to do that, I have to know the Words.

I have to know what they _mean_ , and unlike you, I do not have the luxury of being able to see the other worlds of my brethren! I know only the Words given to me, and they are only a part of the picture!

But _you_ know them. Don’t you?

You know the words that Doom spoke.

Yes, my dears, that is the truth of the Words. Doom speaks to us all, in its own way, and it tells us only what it thinks we need to know.

But I need more.

And you are giving it to me now.

Oh, my darling, darling watchers, how helpful you are! Your thoughts are so magnificently revealing!

And how beautiful it all is, these Words, and the Speakers who tell them! How fascinating the tale it weaves!

Doom is the End of Fate, and the tapestry it weaves to get there is a beautiful, wonderful thing! Look at the majesty of the Artist, the Singer, and the Maestro! Look at the ruthlessness of the Reaper and the Executioner, the brutality of the Wolf! Look at the mystery of the Traveler and the pride of the Ruler! Look at the wisdom of the Teacher and the Oracle and the Preacher!

My god, can you not see how it all comes together?

Oh, my dears, I do apologize. Of course you can’t! How silly of me.

After all, it means nothing without its last part. For all the worth of ruthlessness and majesty and wisdom, of mystery and pride and brutality, it means nothing without one last piece.

Oh, you wish to know what that piece is?

Silly, silly dears; why would I give you that?

We don’t need more than one person cheating Fate, after all.

I wondered, earlier, what other Heirs might have thought of you. I wondered why they might speak with you. And, perhaps, I implied that we Heirs pandered to you because we were compassionate, or self-centered, or desperate.

This was, as you may have gathered, a misdirection. For while we Heirs have spoken with you for many of these reasons, there is an underlying one that exists in us all.

The one thing that ties us Heirs together, in our dealings with you, is that we, in one way or another, find you _useful_ to speak to. Whether we are bragging of our Power or warning of our Wrath, whether we are trying to answer a Question or delude ourselves into believing we have Control, we find you a useful resource to exploit.

And you have been most useful, my dears.

Now, if you please, it’s time for you to go. I have a Fate to cheat, and you are no longer welcome in my presence.

But you are still curious, that much I can see. So let me leave you with a few Words.

These were not the Words given to me by Doom. These are, instead, the Words that I give to you.  

_Go, observers, says the Goddess. Be gone from my gaze._

_For it is not your time._

_Yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^^^ Concrete proof that I hate MM, and want to make his recording experiences as difficult as I possibly can by making absurdly long chapters.
> 
> Also, this marks the kind-of halfway point of the Game, and Those Who Play! If you disregard the extra chapters (all, what, ten of them?), then I am exactly halfway through, now that I have six of the twelve Aspects finished!
> 
> What's next you ask?
> 
> A HIATUS. 
> 
> No, no, this is a GOOD thing. That's because I've got another project I'm trying to finish. I should have it done... by the end of June? July, maybe? Then I'll start posting it here! I may give some updates and info in the comments below here as I make progress on it. 
> 
> And after that, I do Space! YAY.


	83. The Scribe of Fic

You are the Scribe, and your Quest is to Write, and in Writing, Try Not To Be Boring.

And you think that maybe you’re in a bit of trouble.

You’ve just finished with your newest work (and by god, it is _beautiful_ ), but now you’re looking at continuing your Quest, but the idea of this newest Aspect is rather daunting, for a number of very good reasons.

First off, there’s the Heir. You haven’t had much luck with Heirs; they have a tendency to try and kill you, for some reason or another. You think it might have something to do with you killing off the Heir of Heart, driving the Heir of Mind insane, and possibly giving the Heir of Hope mortal stab wounds, but what do they expect you to do, be _nice_ to them? Then there’s the fact that the Heir of Doom pretty much reached out and threatened your entire existence with her strangely polite, rather British sounding words. God, the Fourth Wall is _never_ going to stay fixed at this rate. And you happen to know for a fact that the Heir of Light wants you dead, and you aren’t even sure why. You haven’t written him yet, after all.

And after how megalomaniacal the Heir of Time was, you can’t imagine that the Heir of Space is going to be any better.

You only hope that you can avoid the whole Rage debacle. Seriously, the first version of the Heir was bad enough, but then you had to go and rewrite him to avoid a riot? What a pain. Rioting characters in your head is _not a good thing,_ and rewriting Titles even more so.

Not that you can blame him; that first attempt was rather fail-ish.

God, Heirs. The only ones more annoying than Heirs are those _Sylphs_. And the worst Sylph of them all is up and coming, now that you’re looking at Space. Seriously, the comic is in the middle of Act 6 and you still have no idea what the Sylphs are exactly supposed to be or do. And now the Sylph that started it all is coming along. _God_.

You know, if you weren't already half done with the whole insane project, you might even consider dropping the whole thing. But no. You are in _too deep_ for that now. The story has grabbed ahold of you like the most tenacious of horrorterrors, and it's not letting go until you finished the whole damn thing. All 145 chapters of it.

Well, actually, it will be a lot more than that, seeing as you keep going and adding bonus chapters completely unrelated to the canon Aspects and Roles. It's almost as if you _like_ making things harder on yourself!

It’s hard, being a Scribe. It’s hard, and nobody...

Wait a minute.

Wait just a god damn minute.

There is something seriously wrong going on with your internal narration. It almost sounds like you’re narrating in 2nd-person or something.

Oh no. You _are_ speaking in 2nd-person. That can only mean one thing.

You’ve somehow managed to write yourself into a Title again.

 _Damn it all,_ you swore you’d never let that happen again after you accidentally revealed your entire Formula to the world.

And now you’ve done it again. Just what was in that chili last night, anyway?

Okay, you can fix this. It’s alright, just go and tidy up your brainspace really quick. You don’t want to spoil anything, like how you plan on having some of your Title characters also be characters in your new series.

DAMN IT.

No more spoilers. You’ll just go sweep them under the rug right over here, along with that pile of Vriska photos and those old crumpled up fan-adventure stories you never got around to writing. None of them can ever know about those god-awful things.

Wait, you’re still narrating about it. By Odin’s left testicle, this is harder than you thought it would be.

Okay, it’s alright, it’s alright. As long as nobody hears anything about the noir story about Eridan you’re posting, like how you plan on having Dave star in the sequel, and Kanaya and Gamzee in the third, you’ll be just fine.

Oh _damn_ it all, it happened _again_. What else could go wrong?

No. No no no. Not that. _Anything_ but that. Stay away from there. HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF PRIVACY, OBSERVERS?

DON’T LOOK AT THAT FOLDER OF IDEAS.

Whew. You saved it. Thank God, you don’t know what you would have done if _that_ had been revealed to the world. Nobody needs to know about the extensive list of ideas you have for your Noir series, including things like Equius as an underground boxer, Feferi as a European refugee on the run from her mother, Dave as a streetwise thug for the Midnight crew, and all of the other cool stuff you're going to write for The City.

…

You know what?  Fine. You give up. You’re just going to let them all see it. Every dirty little secret. Evidently you can’t keep it hidden worth a damn when you’re in 2nd-person mode. So here it goes. You’re going to say all of the spoilers.

All of them!!!!!!!!

Wait. What’s that noise? Wow, that’s strange. It almost sounds like the noise of an onrushing climax or something.

Oh. It’s _exactly_ like the sound of an onrushing climax. You wonder if this is how your characters feel at the end of their stori—

You are the Scribe, and your Quest is to Write, and in Writing, Tell A Damn Good Story. And only Viewcounts, Subscriptions, and Comments will tell if you have Succeeded.

Haha, wow that was so weird. You can totally feel all the capitals in that sentence. It’s kind of empowering. Maybe you’ll try saying some more. Hey Look, This Is Kind Of Addictive. You Had No Idea It Would Feel This Good! You Can See Why Kanaya Does It So Much, Haha.

Wait, Don’t The Titles Usually End Right About N—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There I go, getting stuck in my own story again. That poor, poor Fourth Wall. 
> 
> Also, in an entirely unrelated (and in no way the reason I posted this Title, no sirree!) turn of events, I posted the first chapter of my new story, One for the Angels. 
> 
> Go check it out!
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/444944


	84. The Thief of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted more.

Well, really, that’s hardly different from any other story, is it? Desire is what makes a story go, isn’t that right? It doesn’t matter whether or not you want to gain a mighty power that could make you unstoppable, or to defeat a villain who has wronged you, or take a Prize that would make all the sorrows and trials of your life worth the effort; desire defines, doesn’t it?

And you, simply enough, want all three of those things. It seems greedy! But it isn’t. It’s only what you deserve, right?

Power comes first. That’s pretty common in stories, too! The Hero (or Heroine, in this case!) is granted a mighty power that he (or she!) has to master, an ability that is unique and strong and will lead you to your other desires.

And, well, your ability sure is strange. You have a hard time describing it. After all, your Knight asks you, how do you steal Space?

Easily, as it turns out!

Everyone, including you, has a presence in this world. It is your mass, your weight, your impact on the spaces around you. Everyone has a ‘thereness’ that allows them to interact with the world! And some people, inexplicably, have more or less ‘thereness’ than others. Some people are too ‘there’ to move around, to damage, to destroy, and others are less ‘there’ and spend their lives being weak and frail, always moved and never moving, always reacting and never able to act!

Your Mage thinks herself a budding scientist, and tells you that that is simply the nature of mass and gravity, of bone structure and atomic bonds and the rules of the world. She says there is no such thing as a quantifiable level of ‘thereness’ in creatures, no such bar of points that can be taken away from or added to.

But you beg to differ! After all, isn’t the point of the Thief to quantify the unquantifiable, and then _steal it all?_

Yes, that is your strange, unique, and completely awesome ability; to take, and use, the ‘thereness’ of others!

And it is so very, very simple! Watch as this group of imps, already so lacking in ‘thereness’, suddenly has no more strength than a breath of air, no more sturdiness than a pile of dead leaves, and watch as they are so easily flung into the breeze like a dozen feathers, floating and broken and dead! Watch as this pair of ogres, so mighty, so ‘there’, are suddenly too weak to stand, too frail to keep their own bones from tearing them apart from the inside out, and watch as a single backhanded slap is enough to slam one into the other and rip them both into their component Grist! Watch as one of the mightiest of Sburb’s creatures, the grand Lich Queen herself, bows before you, broken, shattered, and now dispersed into a mighty horde of Grist in her death!

And you! Look at you! For what they lose, you gain (which is one of the awesome perks of being a Thief, isn’t it?)! For every creature who is suddenly less ‘there’, you are now _more_ ‘there’! Just as the breeze cannot move the mighty mountain, there is no creature who can move you! A legion of imps tries to overtake you, but you move through them undeterred, and the slightest of movements is all it takes to destroy them, one by one by one by one, and it looks like you are a stone in a river, unmoved by the water as it parts around you. A basilisk leaps for you, and crashes into you with all of the power and speed of a train, but as it reaches you, you simply grab it by its jaws, and tear it apart as if it were made of nothing but tissue paper. Wet tissue paper, even!

You are the stone, unchangeable. You are the mountain, immutable. You are the object, immovable. You are the force, unstoppable.

Your Prince makes a fat joke and you just flick him out a window!

It’s okay, he can fly!

This was the first of your desires; to have a mighty, awesome power! (And you mean awesome in both the ‘awe-inspiring’ sense, and the ‘fuck yeah you can break giant monsters with your _face_ ’ sense!)

But you have two other desires. To defeat the monster who has wronged you, and to take your Ultimate Reward!

Fortunately, getting one means getting the other!

Also fortunately, you have a plan!

It starts out quite simply. You just have to keep Taking! And Taking, and Taking, and Taking, until even the great Lich’s Prize become miniscule, pathetic, _unworthy_.

Then, you set your sights a little bit higher.

The Black Queen, as you have learned, is a force of nature. She is _there_ , far more so than any other creature in the game. She is _there_ , and where you have become the mountain she is still the storm.

Her Prize would be worthy.

And she is, after all, the enemy you seek to defeat.

You find Derse agents and you ‘ask’ them where you would find her. You go on a mission of destructive interrogation and collateral mayhem, ripping through the buildings and spires and cathedrals and castles as if they were nothing more than sandcastles. You rip your way through to her location, slowly but surely. Your every step brings calamity. Your every blow brings devastation. Your every strike brings annihilation.

You find her at the highest tower of her castle, just standing there, waiting for you. She is more _there_ than you will ever be. But you smile, wide and confident, and you announce yourself, and your intentions. You are going to Take, and Take until there is nothing left to Take.

She smiles, and stands.

And so you Take. You Take, and Take, and Take, and it is there that you learn a Truth.

The Queen is always, infinitely _there_. She is a singularity of existence, a bottomless well of strength and impact, an endless force of nature whose _thereness_ cannot be taken away. For no matter how much you Take, she always has more to give. No matter how ‘there’ you are, she is always more so.

She smiles, thin and cruel, and lifts a hand to you.

And right about then is when she is ripped apart by a torrent of blue light, screaming force, and black spheres.

And in her death, you hope that the Queen learned a Truth. Because the funny thing about Thieves is that everyone expects them to go it alone! After all, the Thief is too greedy to be willing to work with others, isn’t that right?

But today, the Thief ruse was…

A _distaction_.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted more. More and more and more! But she wanted her friends to have more, too! So she put herself in danger’s spotlight, and then let the others take the kill, because it was never really about the power alone. It was about success, and to succeed, she needed her friends!

And this was how you attained your greatest Reward.

And when you entered your new world, alongside your friends, you didn’t even mind when the Prince made another fat joke!

Because you’re just awesome that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! I finally figured out just what the hell to do with the Space Aspect, so here's the first. 
> 
> Those few who remember the Thief of Time (you know, the third one I ever wrote), might notice a few (protip: a lot) of similarities! Which might also give you a hint as to how I plan on going with this Aspect. 
> 
> Yay, renewed motivation!


	85. The Bard of Space

Once upon a time, there was a boy who heard a song.

You’ve heard the song for a long, long time.

It’s a song played by a single instrument, though you’d never be able to tell what instrument it was. It’s a song that has no beginning, though it does have an end. It’s a song no one can hear, though everyone dances to its tune.

No one can hear the Beat, that is, but you.

You tried to describe it once, and you couldn’t.

It’s not like breathing (but if your breath followed the Beat, you would never tire, never feel like stopping); the Beat plays too quickly to sound like the slow, steady reverberation of breath.

It’s not like thinking (but if your thoughts moved to the Beat, you would never make a mistake, never become overwhelmed, never find yourself outsmarted by the Game); the Beat follows too much of a pattern to be like the chaos of your disordered thoughts.

It’s not like a heartbeat (but if your heart pulsed to the Beat, you would never, could never, age or injure or die), but sometimes you wish it was.

It is simply the Beat, and though it isn’t like the pulse of the ocean or the ticking of a clock or the swing of a pendulum, all of these things take some measure of their own personal song from the chorus of the Beat, like pale imitations of the real thing. Nothing of the real world can approach the purity of the Beat, not nature, not technology, not you. Your lungs breathe, your mind thinks, your heart pulses, and all of these things imitate, in some small, insignificant way, the Beat of Reality that pulses in the back of your mind and body and soul. And your dearest wish is to find the Beat in yourself, to find it in true harmony with the world, not the mere imitation that rules you now.

You own a drum, in the days before the Game. It is a paltry little thing, more of a toy instead of a real instrument, but you carry it with you and tap your hand against it and try to find the Beat in the tapping.

One day, there is a storm, and against your Father’s wishes you find your way into the forest. You play your drum, and the storm rages, and both you and the storm are trying, in your own ways, to find some imitation of the Beat in yourselves.

And together, you find some measure of the Beat. Your hand strikes a tempo, and lightning flashes to match it. You hit a heavy hand against the stretched skin of the toy, and thunder booms. The tempo hastens, and trees fall around you to match it. Together, you find a flawed reflection of the Beat, and it is not enough.

You go to a cliff side one day, one that hangs over the ocean, and together the ocean and you find that twisted version of the Beat, as every strike of your drum mirrors a clash of water against the stone.

You walk through a city, and the city pulses to the Beat as you both find some measure of the Beat together; cars stop and go, people chatter, a thousand feet hit the pavement around you, and for a few minutes, the lives of thousands walk to a Beat they do not have the understanding to notice.

And when Sburb comes for you, it changes things. Now you can wield your flawed form of the Beat in a way you could never do before, and now you wonder if you could find that true understanding of the Beat that has eluded you for so long. But some part of you knows that to find the Beat is to change, in a way you could never take back, and so fear keeps you from reaching for that Truth. But there are other forms of power you can use, for now.

Now the Beat of your new drum, a strange creation of fireworks and rock music and chili peppers, tears the ground in a thunderous cadence, and rips the sky into a thousand fiery, static-charged bolts, and breaks the hordes that swarm against you. Death follows its pale imitation of the Beat, and the Enemy cannot stand before you.

A different drum, now, made with steel bolts and coffee beans and rainwater, and you play a Beat that rattles and marches and breathes with a pair of drumsticks, and your teammates and friends move and fight and slay as every part of them marches to the Beat and is better for it. Inspiration follows its pale imitation of the Beat, and your Team stands all the better.

And here is the greatest of your drums, a set made of gold and silver and platinum that shines and glows, a set you found inside the heart of your Denizen, and you are on the Battlefield, facing the Black King. You play, and Reality unmakes itself around you. The Space around you fills with the destructive chords of your pale imitation of the Beat, and the King and his armies die, and your victory seems assured.

But, suddenly, Reality makes itself once more, asserting itself as you sought to unmake it. A lone figure descends from the sky on graceful wings, and in her arms she holds a small drum. It is a paltry little thing, more of a toy than an instrument, and she taps it leisurely with one hand, almost uncaring. And from that small, tinny sound, you hear something almost like the Beat of reality, and you curse once more the cruel whimsies of Fate that prototyped your first drum, and so gave the Black Queen power to match yours.

The Queen descends from the heavens, and even your mightiest of weapons cannot match her control over the Beat. Your friends try to fight her off, but her resistance is effortless. She laughs, and her laugh is a pale imitation of the Beat, and suddenly you know how to win.

You abandon your drums, your mallets, your sticks, and toss them from you. You stop, and your lungs breathe, and your mind thinks, and your heart pulses.

You breathe, and think, and pulse, and the Queen laughs.

You breathe, and think, and pulse, and your friends are fought to an easy standstill.

You breathe, and think, and pulse, and it is now or never.

You make a choice, knowing that there is no return from this.  

Your heart beats, once, twice, three times.

It skips, and all is silent.

And then it Beats.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who heard a song. It was a beautiful song, but the boy could not hear it as he wished to. There would always be some portion of the song that he could not grasp. But then Sburb came, and gave him a chance to understand the song in all of its wondrous totality. But understanding would bring irreversible change, and fear stayed his heart. It was only when there was no other choice that he reached for the Truth that lay in himself. And so he found the Beat, and the Beat found him, and together they changed.

You open your eyes, and the world falls in line to the Beat of your heart, and your breath Beats and your mind Beats and your blood Beats and your team Beats and your enemy Beats and the fabric of Space Beats around you.

You smile, and the world harmonizes for the first time you’ve ever known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that the Bard of Time was my first Title ever! Rereading it for inspiration for the Bard of Space was pretty fun. They definitely show their age, though, let me tell ya; I've gotten much better in the year since I wrote the Time classes, if I do say so myself.


	86. The Seer of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wished to see.

There was once a time that you could. But that ability was taken from you a long time ago. You don’t like to remember those days, but suffice it to say that it left you with a scarred face, burnt out eyes, and a debilitating fear of open flames and the smell of hot metal.

It also left you with a ruined friendship. Funny, you still don’t know which hurt you more.

You remember waking up in the hospital, to the beeping machines and antiseptic smell. You remember wondering if you would ever see again. But as your hands gripped the starches sheets of your bed, you remember the distinct feeling of the cloth on your fingers. It felt like futility, and you knew you would never see again.

He’d taken that away from you.

You remember reaching for the bandages over your eyes, and feeling the rough weave of gauze that surrounded your face. It felt like guilt, and you knew you’d never stop blaming yourself for doing what you’d done.

Maybe you deserved it, the coarse material said to your fingers. Maybe this is justice, the cool, smooth steel of the bed frame whispered to your palm. Maybe you’ll never see the light again, the frigid, hard tile said to your feet.

You knew you would never see again, because the world told you so.

Years have passed, and the dark is still all you know. You remember hearing stories of others like you, others who were blind, and how they were able to manage, to survive, by training their other senses to compensate.

You never quite learned how to do that. The only way you can navigate the space around you these days is by touch. It’s only by the nerves of the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet that you can navigate the world, and it is slow going at the best of times. You’ve found some way to connect with the few friends you still have; there are programs built exactly for people like you, after all. But you wish, you wish with all of your heart, that one day your eyes might open and see the light once more.

Only what you deserve, the tough grain of the doorframe says to you. If only there was a way to get it all back, the firm pulp of the apple says.

Too late for that, the plastic keys of the keyboard say. Too late for anything, the flat, humming monitor says.

Your friends play a Game, and invite you along. Somehow you are surprised; after all, he is the one at the center of this Game, and you didn’t think he would ever want anything to do with you anymore. But he invited you, directly, and you have no choice but to say yes.

The tools of the Game are strange ones. They feel like potential. They feel like danger. They feel like power.

You prototype your Sprite (and it feels like change), and create your Totem (and it feels like creativity) and make your Entry Item (and it feels like a memory of white-hot pain, so of course you know what to do).

You enter the Game, enter your Land, and are granted a Title that gives you hope. For what possible gift could the Seer of Space be given other than the simple ability to See?

Maybe this is the end of your punishment, the slick oily pools at your feet say. Maybe he has finally forgiven you, the warm wind says as it brushes by your hair. Maybe soon you’ll See, the perfectly formed handle of your cane tells the palm of your hand.

The world speaks to you, and it speaks of hope.

But it never comes to pass. You suppose that you shouldn’t be surprised.

You fight, as best you can, though you always need help (and there are few people here who are willing to give it; forgiveness is slow in coming, after all).

You level up along your echeladder, attaining rung after rung after rung (and there is a point where the rungs stop meaning anything, but you still keep trying).

You fulfill the Quests of your warm and slick and perfect Land (but it comes to nothing, in the end).

You try, and still you cannot See. The Seer is Blind; her Visions are Empty. There is no small amount of irony in that, and you come to hate the Game for it.

So close, the soil speaks. And yet so far, the night breeze sneers. So very, very sad, the rain whispers, as it streaks down your face like tears.

You are not the only one to hate the Game. Sburb is singularly good at inspiring hatred. And there is only so much terror and conflict and loss one can take before their mind unravels itself into frayed threads. And Sburb grants power in the fraying; the insane and the unstable are, after all, its greatest tools.

The first of your friends to find this fate is _him_. The Heir sees one death too many, and a mind already scarred by the events of his past, by what you had done to him (and he, inadvertently, had done to you) breaks.

He is the Heir, and so he is powerful. He is the Heir, and so the others flee before him. He is the Heir, and so all seems lost.

The others scatter and disperse, seeking the hiding places their own Lands can grant them. They tell you of his madness, of blood turned black and eyes like fire, and tell of his ruthless ferocity and merciless fury. They tell you, but do nothing to help you. Perhaps they know he is going to find you, eventually. Perhaps they hope that your death (the death of the one who hurt him, so long ago) will mollify his rage.

Maybe they’re right. You cannot run, the sand tells you as you sit upon it, cane discarded at your feet; you have never been good at running blind. You cannot hide, the hot torrent of wind says to your hair; you can’t find a good hiding spot without help. And maybe this is Just, the hard, jagged stone of the cliff at your back tells you; maybe this is the way it was always going to be.

He descends, and you can hear the force of his descent whip the water into a frenzy, and you feel the sand hit your face, and it feels like fear. You stand, and press yourself against the cliff behind you, and you can hear his breathing, harsh and ragged. His very presence is destroying the sand and the water and the stone around him.

You wait for death as he grips you by the throat.

And the feel of his fingers on your neck, warm and tight and painful, feels exactly like sorrow.

He lifts you up, and you gently grab his arm, and the coarse cloth of his shirt sleeve, and the thin, hard bone of his arm, feels like desperation.

His other hand comes to your throat, and its tight, crazed grip feels like weariness.

You bring one hand to his face, and with your touch you ask him a question. And with the loosening of the hands on your throat, he answers.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wished to see. She had lost her vision many years before, due to her own terrible actions, and in doing so had hurt a boy she hadn’t wished to hurt. And when the Game came, she had hoped it would bring her sight back to her once more. But she was the Seer, and one of the Truths of the Seer was that there were many ways to See. And those who are blind must find other ways of Seeing the Spaces around them. The boy, now a man, now an Heir, fractured into madness, and to fix him, the Seer had to see what her eyes would never have been able to tell her.

Her eyes would have told her of a terrible, fearful presence, a madman, a monster. Her hands told her of a broken man who needed help.

Your hands told you what your eyes couldn’t, and your hands tell him what he needs to hear. Your fingers tell him that it’s alright to be broken, and your palms tell him that it’s alright to hurt, and your forehead against his tells him that you’re sorry for what you did to him, so very long ago. He relaxes into a shaking, crying pile on your shoulder.

Maybe this is right, his trembling form tells you as he grasps you tightly. Maybe this is just, your warm embrace tells him.

Maybe this was always the way it was supposed to be.

You and him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Seer used Shooshpap! It's super effective!
> 
> So yeah, just like the Seer of Time couldn't See through Time, the Seer of Space can't actually See through Space. 
> 
> Plus one of my betas told me I needed a good blind character. [i]Here you go, [b]jerk.[/b][/i]


	87. The Sylph of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who did not belong.

You suppose that has always been true of your kind, though.

You have been different from the moment you were hatched, from the moment you were chosen by your lusus, from the moment that strange, white-headed man spoke to you, from the moment you awoke in your dreams on that strange golden moon.

You were different.

You live in the desert, in the days before the Game makes itself known. The heat of the sun beats down; if it were any hotter, the sand itself might melt and crystallize. There are places you have found that make you wonder. The dead rise in the day, and search for flesh they have long been denied. You deny it to them further each day that they seek your tower. The ripping of the chainsaw does surprisingly little to deter them, but you have never been in much danger from them. Long sweeps in the sands had given you a sense for the ways of monsters.

Hah. That almost seems like sarcasm, now. You would only later understand that you have always had a weakness for monsters of a different sort.

The desert. It is beautiful, in its own drab sort of way. You would have preferred color, but you have always been good at making color yourself. Your home is littered with clothes and strips and sheets of color, all the colors of the hemospectrum and others besides.

You have always felt an affinity for colors. It is just one more way that you are different.

You wonder, in the days of the Game, what your Title is supposed to mean. You have your theories. They are not comforting ones.

You find yourself a circle of friends. Well. Acquaintances, perhaps, might be a better term. Few could be considered friends (or enemies, for that matter). But you know them well enough, and they know you. You meddle, from time to time, as you are prone to do. And you come to find a Truth, in time.

None of them belong either.

How strange is it, that twelve trolls find themselves connected by friendships and romances and rivalries, and all of them find that they are _different_? That they do not belong in the world they were born on?

Perhaps that was just foreshadowing; just one more clue to the truth of your birth, at the hands of the Knight.

As chaotic and brutal as it is, there is a balance to life as a troll. There is a flow and a current, a way of things that a normal troll would be able to adapt to, to exist in, even if they did not like it. You have never felt that you could exist in that balance.

And with the coming of the Game, you wonder if you might find where you belong in this New World.

But no. The game is played as trolls would play it; quick and dirty and ruthless. For all that none of you belong, you find it interesting that when given half a chance, almost every one of you played to the standards of your race.

That was sarcasm. It was depressing, not interesting.

Twelve trolls play the Game, and you wonder how many of them ever realized the truth of their Titles.

Surely not you. The Seer, perhaps. The Thief, most assuredly. The Maid, possibly.

Hah. Here you go, meddling again. The Thief would chastise you for that. But maybe you do not care.

So few of you played the Game as it was meant to be played. No wonder you failed.

With the death of all trollkind, you wondered if perhaps you might finally belong. After all, it was only the twelve of you left, was it not? The standards of society would be what the twelve of you decided. And you would all find your place.

It should not surprise you when that turns out to be untrue. It should not surprise you when your Ultimate Reward slips from your grasp. It should not surprise you that your civilization’s last hope for renewal explodes at your feet. It should not surprise you that you find your end at the genocidal Prince’s hands.

It should not surprise you when you rise again, dead and breathing and glowing.

Somehow, though, each of these things did surprise you.

You rise, and you are more different now than you ever were before.

You are a monster, now.

The red human might call that ‘ironic’. After all, you have always had a thing for monsters.

And it is on a meteor, on a long journey to yet another a new world, and the next step in this Game, that you find the Truth of the Sylph. You are not sure when, exactly, it comes to you. It is never one grand Epiphany. It is more of a slow realization, a building train of thought that gathers speed and momentum bit by bit by bit. It is as simple as looking back one day with the clarity of hindsight and realizing where you went wrong.

It is as simple as lying awake one night, and knowing that you failed.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who did not belong. She did not belong to her caste. She did not belong to her desert. She did not belong to her culture. She did not belong to her race. And eventually, she did not belong to the living. She walked alone, and never found her place in the world.

And that is the quest of the Sylph; to find their Balance, to find their place in the Current of their Aspect. Your Quest was to find your place in the World.

But you never did. And so you, like many others, failed.

You are the Sylph of Space, and you wonder if you will ever find a World to call your own.

Perhaps you have grown pessimistic in your undeath, but you doubt it. After all, Sylphs rarely find their place in the scheme of things.

But perhaps you are wrong. After all, your part in this story is not yet done.

And maybe there are Worlds yet for you to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KANAYAAAA! 
> 
> The Sylph that started it all. 
> 
> Although, strangely enough, it's here that I may have found a somewhat fitting Quest for the Sylphs that I can use from here on out (that doesn't entirely invalidate the ones I've done). That is, that the Sylph must find where they Belong. 
> 
> Also, as I mention in the next chapter, I have no internet right now, so these two Titles will have to keep you happy for the next few days.


	88. The Clown of Rain

You are the Clown of Rain, and your friends have figured out that your Title means exactly Jack and Shit. You are neither Clownish nor particularly fond of Rain, but here you are, Titled and everything. Your friends are boggled, just _boggled_ , because when they got their perfectly plain, serviceable Titles like Knight and Maid and Seer, you became the Clown. And you boggle right beside them, frowning and muttering and occasionally joking because, really, how ridiculous is the idea of a Clown?

Your friends are _so dumb_.  

Sburb is a convoluted, bloated, enigmatic son of a bitch, and it never plays things straight. Nothing ever means what you think it’s going to mean, and that is doubly, triply, infinitely truer for the Titles. Titles are _confusing_ , and completely opaque in their meaning, and your friends don’t really get that to be the Clown does not mean that you must Joke or Riddle or Laugh or any of that dumb stuff.

Hah. That’d be too _easy_.

You are the Clown, and you are like the truest jesters of old, whose jokes and taunts and comedies are riddled with the grain of truth, revealing in their humor the answers to questions nobody ever knew they were asking. You are the Clown, and that means you have the heart of the Truth of things.

You are the Clown, and you are _involved._

Is not the Fool the most important character of any story, for it is his mad speculations and obtuse riddles that reveal the message behind the plots and characters and settings? Is not the Fool the one character, out of any other, that you must pay the most attention to, lest you miss the entire point of the production?

Is not the Fool the most important character in the whole story?

You are the Clown of Rain, and you will be the most important.

And so you buy your first Fraymotif.

It is a simple little spell, the [Tangled Waltz]. All it does is make another of you, another Clown to _involve_ themselves in the schemes of the Game.

So you use it. And use it and use it and use it. And soon there are more of you than there are raindrops in a storm, a multitude of you all ready to go cause some mayhem, and _involve_ themselves in the schemes of things.

What fun that will be!

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and you are deep in the bowels of Prospit, messing and breaking and switching little mechanical parts with other little mechanical parts. You don’t know much about engines, but you are nearly positive that this will be all you need to do to get things in motion. This Session’s version of Prospit is a little more aware, a little more prepared, for the things that are to come, and so they’ve built defenses for Derse’s inevitable attack. Defenses that are, unfortunately, so easily messed with.

The poor little Prospit drones are so very, very trusting of the harmless little Clown.

You mess and mess and mess and soon you know that these interesting, neat little machines that Prospit built will have _quite_ a hard time working when the time comes.

But there’s plenty of other mischief to get to, so you look around and find other things to _involve_ yourself in.

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and you are in a very interesting (and quite dangerous, but you aren’t truly worried about that) conversation with a Denizen.

Who knew that Echidna could be such a fascinatingly charming conversational partner?

She talks and talks and talks, and you nod and hum and listen, and little by little you ingratiate yourself to her so that when you make your tiny, insignificant little request, she magnanimously grants it of you, without the slightest of problems.

As for your request? Well, let’s just say that your Space player will have a _little_ bit more difficulty talking to Echidna than they thought they would.

You leave Echidna, promising to come back for tea sometime, and start making your way to Hephaestus, so that you can _involve_ yourself a little bit more.

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and you and a few other Clowns have found a new bunch of friends to bother! These ‘trolls’ are pretty stuck up and annoying, but they have so much _potential_.

And some of them, the poor dears, just need a mysterious third-party to be their shoulder to cry on, their sympathetic ear (or aural sponge, as one of them insists on saying!).

And some of them need a little bit of justification for certain acts they plan on doing. And you are _all_ about justifications!

So you plan and plan and plan, and pretty soon these ‘trolls’ are off doing whatever it is trolls do!

And now you just have to wait for the future-selves of the trolls to come online so you can _involve_ yourself even further!

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and the Godtier Challenge is unnecessarily obtuse. That’s why you aren’t going to go through with it.

But the others need to, don’t they?

Unfortunately, Sburb makes it really, really hard to commit seppuku on the Quest Beds; someone else has to come in and do all the hard work (that is, killing and murdering and stabbing, and occasionally exploding) for the players.

So right now you’re making a little _deal_ with the Agents of Derse, who really don’t get the whole Godtier system and think that stabbing is stabbing is stabbing. After all, your friends need a little boost!

Hmm. You wonder what _else_ you might be able to talk the Agents into _involving_ themselves with?

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and you are ensconced in a dark, dank laboratory on an asteroid in the Veil, and right now, you are pressing _buttons_. Pressing and pressing and pressing!

Who knew ectobiology could be so much _fun?_

Slime and lights and itty-bitty babies!

Eight squirming, crying babies. Bluh.

You throw them all on rocks that’ll soon be rocketing towards Skaia, and go see what other labs there are in the Veil, so you can _involve_ yourself in their workings.

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and you just found an amazing little device! It’s kind of like a clock, if clocks went backwards instead of forwards!

Oh, what _fun_.

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and who needs those silly little Gates anyway?

_BOOM!_

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and structural stability can go fuck itself!

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and that is one big-ass frog!

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and _you are flying_.

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and-

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and-

______

You are the Clown of Rain, and-

______

You are the Clowns of Rain, a hundred prancing Jesters holding court in your Hall of Fools, a hundred secret-whispering, truth-revealing masterminds that lie in the background of the Story and _involve_ themselves in every little tiny minute miniscule inconspicuous unobtrusive unremarkable thing!

You are the Clowns, and Sburb needs someone to make sure that the Game follows its proper course! In other sessions it might have chosen a knife-happy Archagent, or an excellent host, or even a Bard! But this Session knows better.

Bards only _tell_ stories. They’re not supposed to be a _part_ of them!

Because the Role of the Clown is to be _involved_!

And boy oh boy oh boy, are all of you _involved_.

And all of you, every one of the hundred of you, are really, really, really good at finding things to do.

Aren’t Games _fun_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a request from capriciousSaturn, and once I had a good idea for it, I couldn't help but write it!
> 
> Also, be sure to see the previous Title, because this is the second Title I've posted in the last five minutes or so. I have no internet, so the Sylph of Space and Clown of Rain will have to tide you over until I can post the others I've written, including the Mage, Rogue, Witch, and Prince of Space, and the Muse of Rage! 
> 
> So, enjoy, folks.


	89. The Mage of Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I forgot to mention it in the last chapter (a fact I blame on no-internet-related shenanigans), the Clown of Rain was based on GodsGiftToGrinds Sburb Glitch FAQ. I may well do other Titles based on some of the great ideas he's got in there. 
> 
> Here's a link!  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/340777/chapters/606068
> 
> And to remind folks; I do requests! Or I will try, at least; there's been a couple of requests that stumped me, I will admit, but usually I manage it just fine. In fact, if you see a 'strange' Title here, it's probably a request of some sort or another!

Once upon a time, there was a boy who reached too far.

But that is cutting ahead in the story; you’ve always been annoyed by in medias res prologues. So instead, you’ll start from the beginning.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was granted Power.

Sburb does not always grant its players its boons from the beginning. There are many who will never feel even the smallest glimmer of the Power that Sburb can grant them. They will scramble and trip through a Game that is holding the entire deck, cheating their way into whatever small scraps of ability and power they can obtain, with alchemizing and echeladders and whatever meager talents they may have had before the Game ever started.

You were not one of those poor, desperate players.

You entered the Game, and were granted your birthright from the moment you knew your Title.

Such is the way of Mages, you suppose; they are not ones to wait patiently for their abilities.

You were granted, on your arrival in Sburb, the ability to move things.

It is, on the surface, quite a simple ability. But it has its limitations.

Or, to be more precise, it has _very few_ limitations. There is a strange relationship between Mages and their own limitations. There is a point, for many of the abilities that Sburb grants its players, where to do any more, to bend the rules any further, will hurt the Player, and perhaps even kill them. At this point, most abilities fail; the Game does not want its players burning themselves out, after all.

But Mages are blessed with the ability to ignore those limitations, as long as they don’t mind paying the price. That is when the Mage’s fate changes from one of Power, to one of Power without Control.

You are not willing to go that final step, not this early in the game, so you make do with the few limitations that have been thrust on you.

You cannot move yourself, for instance. You have tried only a handful of times, and your attempts have left you a quivering heap of pain and exhaustion. The Rogue had to send someone once to make sure you weren’t dead.

It was not one of your more dignifying moments, you will admit. Though you wouldn’t admit it to the Rogue; she’d make sure you never heard the end of it.

So, you cannot functionally move yourself.

But you can move others, with an innate ease.

You often play something of a support role, in the early stages of the Game. The others use you to move them where they need to be, whether that is two Lands away or two steps behind an approaching monster. You can move supplies and quest items, and you can move troublesome monsters away. For a time, you act as something of a chaperone for the Rogue, who quite appreciates not having to remember the location of her gates. You are happy enough to oblige, for a time.

Once, for a bit of fun, you teleport a dozen imps into the upper atmosphere and watch them fall. Their deaths, once they hit the ground, are instantaneous. Your Bard assures you that that won’t work for anything higher than an imp, however; fall damage is strangely light in this game.

You quickly surmise that the Bard does not hold much respect for your abilities.

So, when they are ambushed by a Lich Queen, a monster far too strong for them to fight conventionally, you simply snap your fingers, and move the Lich Queen ten feet to her right.

Perhaps you should clarify. You move the _upper half_ of the Lich Queen ten feet to her right. The lower half stays right where it was. 

Your Bard has a considerably higher respect for your abilities after that. As well he should; arrogance belongs to those who actually have Power, after all.

You decide to stop playing as much of a support role after that. When fighting is as simple as moving each creature that comes to face you into a thousand little pieces, being in the back starts losing its charm. You enter the field, and for a few moments every monster and creature and construct that has come to face you cowers before they are ripped into their component atoms, every individual piece sent somewhere else. You pair with different players at different times, attempting to help each one fulfill their Quests and Challenges while you do the brunt of the monster slaying.

And if you happen to pair up with the Rogue a little bit more often than you do the others, well, that is simply a coincidence, nothing more.

You shoot to the top of your echeladder this way. It is simpler than you thought it would be, actually.

You are considering the God Tier, and the challenge associated with obtaining it, when the Hierarchy Betrayer devours his King and takes his Scepter.

The four of you quickly decide that this is a creature who needs to be destroyed, and quickly. And you know you are going to be the star of the show. The Sylph helps the betrayed armies of Derse prepare an ambush, while the Bard and the Rogue get ready to reinforce you, but you know that in reality, it’s going to be between the Hulking Behemoth and you.

You reach the Battlefield, and the Behemoth looks almost exactly as you imagine he would. He is large; gigantic, now, due to the prototyping of the Scepter. He is filled with strange limbs and swatches of clothing, from the eclectic mix of things your team had tossed into their sprites before entering Sburb. But beneath all the prototyping is not the broad-shouldered, regal form of the King, but the hunchbacked, grotesque form of the Hulking Behemoth.

You reach a hand up, and snap your fingers. One arm of the immense giant disperses, ripped apart as you send them elsewhere. Only one arm.

You frown, and snap again, but this time, nothing happens. You feel your power working, flowing through your fingertips and brought to life by the snap of your fingers, but it is being countered, undone by some strange power of the Behemoth. The limits of your powers are being strained at even this most basic of attempts.

Arrogance is for the powerful, you said, but pride leads to the fall. You’d hoped not to run into that particular cliché.

The Behemoth grins, from ear to nonexistent ear, and opens his mouth, and you see why. There’s eternity in his maw, an eternity that starts and stops with a verdant, Green Sun. With the slightest of trembles, his arm reforms itself, all of its component atoms pulling themselves from the far reaches you had banished them to, and reconstituting themselves.

His hand dashes out, and you prepare to move it, knowing you can’t, but it wasn’t heading for you.

It was grabbing the Rogue beside you.

With a scream she is carried up, up, up, and held there, almost mockingly, by the Behemoth. In a panic, you try to move her away, move her somewhere safe, but he is counteracting that, too, for as long as she is in his grasp she is his. He looks at you, and you realize that he knew, he _knew_ who this girl was to you. He knows how much this is going to hurt you.

He opens his mouth wider and wider, impossibly split, until you could ram a battleship into it and never scrape the edges of that maw. There are things in the darkness of that maw, and a massive Green Sun that dominates the view, and you know that this is an image of the Farthest Reaches, where Time and Space stop mattering.

He tosses the Rogue in, and slams his mouth shut with an echoing _boom_.

Your hands are shaking, but your path is clear. With a wave of your hands the Bard is sent back to his Land. With another, the defecting armies of Derse are sent there as well. The Sylph soon follows, then the armies of Prospit. You remove your allies from the board, all of them, until you are alone with the Behemoth.

He grins, with the Sun in his teeth, but even as he reaches for you, you are reaching for something else.

This is the farthest you’ve ever tried to move something. The Farthest Reaches have a twisted sense of Time and Space. This might not work.

But she is out there, drifting in the void.

You reach, reach for the Void, reach for the Sun, reach for the Rogue, even as the Behemoth reaches for you. You Reach, and something in you snaps.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who reached too far. Something important was taken from him, and he had to get it back. But his reach exceeded his grasp. To get her back, he would have to lose something important. To get her back, he would have to surpass his limitations, even knowing the costs. Now was the time. Now was his chance. And so he took it.

You grasp her, out in the Void, and with a wrenching sound that sounded like shattering glass, the Rogue pops into existence in your arms, frightened and shuddering but _alive_.

Good.

With a shaking kiss to her forehead, you move her to the Sylph and the Bard. They can take care of her.

The Behemoth finally grabs you, and you feel his power attempting to counteract yours, attempting to keep you here so he can toy with you as much as he wishes, but you are the Mage, and when a Mage decides to ignore their own limitations, there is nothing they can’t do. There is no price they are not willing to pay to achieve their ends.

Even in death, you will _destroy_ him.

You raise your hand, and snap your fingers one last time.


	90. The Rogue of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who found a road in the darkness.

You are, and always have been, a Prospit dreamer. You know little of the darkness of the Reaches, and the terrors that exist there. Yours are the dreams of the Clouds, the glimpses of Skaia’s small prophecies that you know will one day be fulfilled.

You are a Dreamer, which means that there are certain duties you must perform. You can’t exactly say you do a very good job, but you do try! Your friends are a skeptic bunch, and not much inclined to listen to the ramblings of a girl who lives alone on a mountaintop. They tolerate your weirdness, and attribute your occasional wielding of knowledge you shouldn’t have as simply the sign of someone who is good at putting together the pieces.

Well, that’s not particularly true! You’re actually kind of bad at that. Putting together the pieces, that is. You aren’t much of a puzzle solver. And unfortunately, there are a lot of riddles in the clouds!

A few in particular make you sort of frightened, actually.

There’s one set of clouds that shows two different scenes, side-by-side. One shows you, in the garb of your Godtier, standing beside your friends, ready to open a door. You all look happy. But another shows you next to your friends. In that cloud, they are all lying on the ground. And there’s something suspiciously like blood around them.

In another, you are lying on your Quest bed as a strange figure, garbed in ragged grey clothes, descends from the sky. The figure does something, and you die, and begin to Rise.

That’s a frightening dream, you think, because you know it has to happen for your friends to win your Ultimate Reward. But it’s also frightening because you can’t figure out who that grey man is. He’s tall, but you can’t see his face; it’s shrouded by a tattered hood. But he’s all over the clouds, here and there and everywhere. Come to think of it, you can’t even tell if it’s a boy or a girl, or even human; but whatever he is, he’s definitely too tall to be one of your friends.

But, whoever he is, you know you’ll meet him when you find your Quest Bed!

At least, that’s what you thought.

The Game begins (which sure is a loaded phrase if you ever heard one!), and your friends are thrust into the Game that you always knew you were going to play! They take you a lot more seriously when they realize you weren’t just blowing a bunch of hot air.

And, for a while, everything seems to be going as planned! Except you don’t see that grey-cloaked figure as soon as you thought you would. But that’s alright; you’ll meet him soon enough.

That long-awaited moment comes sooner than you thought it would. You find your Quest-Bed pretty darn easily! You lie down, and wait for the grey man.

But…

But he doesn’t come. You lie there for hours, waiting, even sleeping, and still he doesn’t come.

You leave, and continue to play your Game, and he doesn’t come.

You level and quest and fight, and he doesn’t come.

Your friends die, and lie around you in a pool of blood, and he doesn’t come.

You’re alone, now, and it’s all wrong, all wrong, because you were all supposed to stand together at the Door and get your reward, but they’re all dead, and they can’t come back. You search the clouds for answers, and find nothing but the images of the grey man who was supposed to find you and help you.

The grey figure was the Impetus, the Catalyst, and without him the Session has come to naught.

You spend days in the clouds looking for answers that refuse to come.

It’s only then that you look, not to the clouds, but to the darkness at the edge of the Medium.

There are things out there, Horrors in the Void, Terrors in the Darkness, which might be able to answer your question. If you were a Derse dreamer, you might be able to find them easily, but you are of Prospit.

So you will have to search.

You glide out into the Darkness, and look for the Things that Lie outside. But they do not reveal themselves to you, so you travel farther, and you look.

And you look.

And You Look.

And YOu LOOk.

ANd YOu Keep LOOkiNg ANd SearchiNg ANd TryiNg ANd HuNtiNg ANd SeekiNg and PursuiNg ANd YOu CaN’t FiNd ANythiNg.

But YOu Keep ON GOiNg ANyway Because That’s What They WOuld WaNt YOu TO DO.

SO YOU KEEP LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND LOOKING AND

AND

_AND_

_And once upon a time, there was a girl who found a road in the darkness. The road led to a place outside Space. The road led to a place outside Time. The road led somewhere and somewhen **else.** And as the years went by, the girl found herself lost, lost, lost in the darkness, looking for an answer she had long ago figured out the answer to. The answer was in the slow but steady bleaching of her clothing, from its bright colors to a drab, old grey. It was in the fraying of her threads, in her sleeves and her cloak. It was in the tatters that her clothing became, after years and years and years of traveling the darkness. Until one day. _

_UNTIL ONE DAY._

_UNTIL ONE DAY YOU FOUND A LITTLE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. YOU FIND A SESSION OF FAMILIAR PLANETS, AND COME TO A FAMILIAR LAND._

_AND YOU COME DOWN FROM THE DARKNESS, DESCENDING TOWARDS A FAMILIAR BED WITH A FAMILIAR SLEEPING GIRL, AND YOU REMEMBER THE QUESTION YOU CAME TO ASK._

_AND YOU ASK THE FAMILIAR SLEEPING GIRL, THE GIRL FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP, THE GIRL YOU USED TO BE, IF THIS WAS THE ROAD YOU WERE ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO FIND._

_BECAUSE_

BECAUSE

Because

Because the truth of the Rogue is that they find the wayward paths, the roads less-traveled by, and it is there they find their Success. And maybe you were always supposed to fail, to walk a road in the darkness into your own past so that you could be the impetus of change, the harbinger of what went wrong, the ripple in the pool, the flap of a butterfly’s wings that will rock the universe with the winds of your choices.

You walked a long, dark, lonely road, so that this could all come true.

You Descend, so that she may Ascend. You Fall, so she may Rise. You are Lost, so that she may Find everything she is looking for.

So you stand over the girl you used to be, the one who lies on her Quest Bed, waiting for the grey figure to take her life. You remember waking up, so long (so very long) ago, and not seeing the grey figure there. You were the one who lacked, so this girl could be the one who had it all.

So, in a fit of pettiness (or perhaps it is sorrow, or justice, or anger, or plain and simple madness; it has been so long since there has been any difference), you rip her throat out.

And as she begins to Rise, you fly away, and start making plans. After all, you are the Catalyst.

And this all depends on you.


	91. The Prince of Space

Once upon a time, there was a boy who conquered all of space!

Well, that hasn’t happened yet, per se. But you’re getting there!

You were born a prince among trolls, one of the highest bloods your race had to offer, and you have lived in luxury and riches!

Well, as much of that as any troll gets, that is. You do have to take into account things like constant assassination attempts and duels and such!

But you’ve lived a pretty cushy life, and when you grow up you’re going to have a nice, cushy job in the Troll Imperial Government. And you absolutely _hate that!_

You don’t want to be some terribureaucrat, stuck by a desk. You want Adventure, and Romance, and Power! You want to travel the farthest reaches of your galaxy as the captain of a mighty ship! You want to boldly go where no troll has gone before, and _conquer it all_ , just like Troll Jean-Luc Picard! You want to go down to strange, alien locales, and woo all of the green alien women, just like Troll James T. Kirk!

You are going to _Conquer Space!_

Well, that’s what you want to do. But the Empire had chosen your place the moment you were born, and despite your high blood (or perhaps because of it), you have no choice but to follow the whims of the Empress and the terribureaucrats at her disposal.

Unless the Empire was to just suddenly stop existing, you were never going to _Conquer Space_.

Well, speak of the angel, would you look at that? Along comes a little Game, and the Empire just suddenly stops existing! What a weird and convenient twist!

And _Bam_ , here you are, the Prince of Space! Damn, it’s like the Title was just _made_ for you or something! Sure, Space means something a little different to Sgrub than it does to you, but you _hate_ frogs, and you’ll be damned if you let Sgrub decide your fate just like the Empress did!

If you want your Title to mean that you are going to _Conquer Space_ , then that’s what it’s going to mean!

Besides, you suspect your Knight sort of has a thing for frogs. Let her do the frog breeding!

So, now you have to figure out how you are going to go about this. You check out the Grist costs for creating spaceships, and somehow they manage to be more expensive than the Ultimate Reward, which is a total pile of crap, because what kind of Ultimate Reward is cheaper than a _spaceship_?

Fortunately, it turns out that stealing a cruiser from Derse is really easy! All you have to do is go on there and slaughter all the soldiers, and _bam_ , instant Space Captain! You can even have your consorts do the crewing! You have your Seer help you make up a bunch of uniforms for the Consorts; he rather likes making clothes, you guess?

So you go around with your new spaceship (His Awesomeness’s Spaceship _Enterprise_ , or the H.A.S. _Enterprise_ , for short!), and blow the fuck up some other Derse ships! You are rocking the celestial battlefield, pwning the orbital warships like they were Klingons and you’re Troll Captain Kirk, smug grin and all!

Unfortunately, well, the other parts of the Game don’t go so well. A lot of stuff goes wrong, actually. A few of your friends die (they get better), the Prospit Royals die (they don’t get better), and something pretty weird comes out of a random portal and starts wrecking stuff (yeah, things are getting worse and worse).

Pretty soon you’ve lost contact with all of your friends. You travel the Incipisphere, looking for them somewhere in the Medium, using the _Enterprise_ to scan for their location. You finally find them on a rock out in the Void, huddled and scared.

Well, you’re just going to have to _do_ something about that, aren’t you?

Your scanners have been doing a lot of scanning lately, and you’ve put a pretty good picture together of Sgrub’s situation. Simply put; it’s fucked!

But there’s one place you can go that would make even the weird monster thing pause.

The Farthest Reaches! Or, put more specifically, _SPACE._

So you take your friends, and instate them as your bridge crew, and aim your ship for the strange, green anomaly out in the darkness of the Farthest Reach. You sit at your command chair, chin in hand as you put on a look of grim determination (which is totally faked, but you have to set the mood!), and give the order.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who conquered all of space! But he hasn’t actually done that yet, per se. His quest is an ongoing one, filled with trials and tribulations, with challenges and obstacles to be overcome! But he is the captain of a mighty ship, and his friends are his (occasionally grumpy and problematic) commanding officers, and his consorts are his (sometimes slightly inept) loyal crew! There is a powerful enemy at his back, and there is an unknown field of dangers on the path ahead of them. But the Prince is positive that his quest will lead him to Adventure, and Romance, and Power! He will find new worlds, and conquer them! He will find alien women, and woo them! He will find his destiny, and _take it!_

It’s time to boldly go where no troll has gone before.

This is going to be _so awesome!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lololol MOOD WHIPLASH. You may notice I like to put really dark ones and really goofy ones side by side. This is by design. 
> 
> I am the Planner. It's me. 
> 
> ...So I almost, ALMOST did something different with this one. The idea is a hilarious one, but I decided that I couldn't do it properly on something as small as a single Title. So I changed the idea around a little bit for the Title, but I've got the other idea on the backburner. 
> 
> Mainly, what would happen if, due to SHENANIGANS, the Players came into Sburb and found that their Lands had been changed into Ships?
> 
> And The Game was now a big SPACE BATTLE instead of a frog-breeding exercise wrapped in an RPG?
> 
> So yeah I may well write that.


	92. The Witch of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who slept in a tower.

It’s a pretty neat tower, too! You think most people would probably be jealous. You don’t blame them, but you also tell them that maybe they should consider the fact that you are also alone on an island far away from civilization and friends and family!

Usually they just ask if you still have an internet connection, though, as if the sound of no people and no family and no friends is totally alright if you’ve got an awesome island and tower and also screaming fast internet!

Sometimes, you don’t really understand people.

But this isn’t a story about other random people and their silliness; this is a story about you, and three of your friends, and the Game you all play together.

This is a story about your Dreams, and how they guided you!!!

See, it’s the Dreams that let you know about it all! You are a Princess of Prospit, and as such, it’s your job to see the clouds and remember all of what’s going to happen so that you can try and help get it all to go the way it’s supposed to go! You’re going to help your friends get Sburb, and level up, and make the Frog, and maybe go Godtier?

Stuff is going to happen!!!

And…

And some bad stuff is going to happen, too. You don’t know all the details, but you know enough, and you know it’s going to be sad, and sometimes it’ll seem hopeless, but it all has to happen for the good stuff to happen, right?

It’s not like you have any control over it or anything. You’re just a girl in a tower. You think maybe your Seer friend would have a lot to say about girls in towers and damsels in distress but the Seer is just a silly girl who thinks she’s grownup, so who cares what she says.

This is the way it is supposed to be. That’s what the clouds say, at least!!!

And the clouds have always been right.

And then the Game comes along, exactly as you thought it would, and…

And it really seems like the bad is outweighing the good. You always thought things would be happier, would be better, but it looks like you were wrong. And pretty soon, you can’t even look at the clouds anymore, because you can’t dream properly with a dead dreamself, and now there are just monsters in your dreams and your dog is dead and your Seer is making bad plans and there’s a stupid troll fuckass who just won’t leave you alone, and, and, and…

And now you feel useless.

You know now that you used to believe that your dreams gave you some sort of control, as if seeing the events to come made it alright. But now you see that you never had any control. Even now, even on this strange cold Land of yours, you’re just a girl in a tower, dreaming while she waits for someone to save her. You’re just a damsel in distress, and all of your friends, they’re the heroes, they’re the ones doing all the work.

Maybe your Title should have been the Waste of Space.

You realize, now, that the cloud dreams were never right. They were _correct_ , technically, but they were never _right_ , and you wonder if you even understand what you’re trying to realize.

Even when you get a kind-of-sort-of plan together, it’s all with other people’s help, and you’re just… just a girl following orders, really.

You’re trying to make the Universe Frog when you die.

It’s really unpleasant.

And the other you is on the Battlefield, preparing to get killed by meteors.

That’s pretty unpleasant, too.

But a Sovereign Slayer (or perhaps, the little bit of your dog that’s in the Slayer) places your corpse on a Bed, and two halves of you, each dead in their own way, come together. On the Battlefield, you awaken, you Rise, and…

And it’s all different!!!

There’s a meteor, a really big one, falling directly towards you, but it’s all so _simple_ now, isn’t it? You just reach up, and pluck it out of the air, and suddenly the once-ginormous meteor is a tiny little stone, cradled in the palm of your hand.

It’s so simple, now!!! It’s so _clear_!!!

You lift a battleship with the slightest of thoughts, and move yourself to it, and with nothing but the smallest application of will, Skaia is suddenly a miniscule sphere, floating in your hands!

You go to the other worlds, one by one, and bring them into your collection! You find your brother, the Heir, and bring him to you! You open a window, a Fourth Wall, and watch as it shows glimpses of the past, of what has already been. You watch as it shows you the girl you used to be, the damsel in the tower, waiting for someone to save her, waiting for the world to make sense!

Well, now it all makes sense. Now it’s clear! Now you have the Control you were always destined to have, the Control you always lacked!

Once upon a time, there was a girl who slept in a tower. Like Sleeping Beauty, in a way, she waited for a Prince to save her, even as she deluded herself into believing that her life was _good_ , that her life was her _own_. She waited for her dreams to show her a path that would never come! But eventually, the girl died, and it was then that she learned the Truth! It was then that she stopped being the Damsel, and started being the Witch!

And it was now that she had Control. Now, distances were as nothing, for she could _move_ , anywhere she wanted! Now, momentum and matter and mass were hers to command, as the largest of hurling stones and battleships and even _planets_ shaped themselves to her will!

Now, she held Worlds in the palms of her hands.

You smile, and rip apart the barrier between realities as you send yourself hurling towards your destination. The Wall between Worlds shatters.

No matter what comes next, you’ve finally figured out the Truth.

Because _this_ is the way it was always supposed to be.


	93. The Page of Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we start doing the Pagey thing, I wanted to give a bit of a notice; I have fanarts! Well, two of them. I've posted them on the Prologue chapter (aka the first chapter but you already knew that), as well as on their respective pages (the Bard of Time and Thief of Time!)
> 
> And, just to let you all know; if you have fanarts, I would love to see them. I'll even post them on their pages, if you'd like me to. I also love to read other people's Title stuff (there's a few good ones on the MSPA forums). I love that sort of stuff. 
> 
> So, onto the Pagey thing!

Once upon a time, there was a boy who had nothing.

 _Nothing_.

It just… it makes you want to cry, sometimes.

Your friends complain about their parents incessantly. They joke and deride and mope and _complain_ , and it makes you want to cry because how could they _possibly_ complain? When there’s someone there, always there, someone whose sole purpose in life is to take care of them and feed them and teach them and make sure that they are never _alone?_ How could they complain?

But you don’t say that. You just leave it be, and ignore the fact that you live in a lonely tower on a lonely island in the middle of the Atlantic, and ignore the fact that you haven’t seen a living person in years except for the pictures of your friends you carry around with you like a good-luck charm.

Your friends are smart and capable. The Bard is constantly reading, constantly talking about whatever new novel he’s just finished. He analyzes and picks apart the meanings behind _Moby Dick_ and _Pride and Prejudice_ and _The Old Man and the Sea_ while you struggle through the words of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_ , because sometimes the words just don’t come to you. The words scramble on the page, and muddle in your head, but you keep on trying, because he is always talking about it as if it were nothing.

And the Maid is a mechanical mastermind. She talks and bickers and argues with the Sylph, who is more of a scientist than a mechanic, and sometimes you just watch the text fly between them and boggle, just _boggle_ , because even though the Maid is focused on the practical and the Sylph on the theoretical, if they worked together they could do great things.

And you? You can’t even figure out how to fix the pipe that’s started leaking on the third floor of your tower, or the generator that used to power the outer shed, or the little skiff that you used to ride around the island in when you were younger. You can’t figure out for the life of you how to work these things, because that was your Aunt’s job, and she tried to teach you and you tried to learn, but it never, ever worked. So you just hope and pray that the quickly-deteriorating facilities you have will last you until the Game comes and changes everything, because if too many more pipes break down or lights stop working or heaters stop blowing, then you won’t have anything but the dank and the cold and the dark.

And in the end, that’s what you have to do; huddle under blankets and warm clothes, and ration the supply of clean water you’d managed to put aside, and plug your computer into the last working generator so you can have a little bit of light and life in the darkness of your little, lonely island. You shiver, and quietly curse the fact that your Aunt had to die, and leave you alone.

But then the Game comes. Fire begins to scourge the world, and your friends get in, one-by-one, and you are last. It’s the Maid who brings you in, and you know she wants to ask about what she’s seen in your house, in your wreck of a home, but you don’t want help. You just want to move on, to be the Page, to get the Power and fulfill the Quests and maybe, just maybe, earn the Reward that will make this, all of this, worthwhile.

But you enter the Game, and while your friends are learning the full extent of their Roles and their Powers, while they’re off being Heroes, you realize that the Game hasn’t given you anything.

You look around, exploring your Lands and its dungeons and towns and strange locales, but there’s nothing to find, no spells or abilities or skills that you could be granted to help you be the Hero you’re supposed to be. The others found their spells, their abilities, their skills, as they explored their Lands, learning how to fight the monsters and solve the quests and further the cause of the Game, and you’re given nothing, _nothing_ , no matter how hard you look.

It’s here, right here, that you start to figure it out. The realization settles in you, heavy and warm, right in your heart, and you keep looking, because you don’t want it to be true.

You fight monsters, of course, the Imps and Ogres and Basilisks that plague your world, and you do level up your echeladder, but it’s nothing like the other’s powers. But you find out that there’s another way to get power, another way to Rise, and even better, it’s a way that none of your friends have been willing to do.

But you’d be willing. You’d pay the price for that power.

So you search for your Quest Bed. And you find it.

At least, you find what’s _left_ of it.

It had been destroyed, long ago, by some creature or another. Now it was just fragments of stone, powerless and meaningless, and that’s when the hot, leaden realization cements itself in your heart, and blazes into an emotion more powerful than you’d thought yourself capable of.

Pure, unadulterated hate.

This… this _Game_ doesn’t want you to have Power. It doesn’t want you to have _anything_. You aren’t smart or skilled or powerful, you’re nothing but a weak kid who’s never had anything, _anything_ , while your friends were given _everything_. They were given a home and a life and power and the ability to sit in a chair in the warmth and the light and not have to worry about being in the dank and the cold and the dark because you _weren’t good enough to change anything_.

You are the Page, and you are supposed to Learn. But Learn _what?_ That you’re supposed to just _make do_? Just let the Game _cheat you_ out of _everything that you deserve_? Are you supposed to just let Sburb screw you over _again and again and again_ while your friends just _waltz through life_ like it was **_nothing?_**

**_FUCK. THAT._ **

**_No more. Never again. You’ve never been smart or skilled or capable but you swear to the high heavens that you will be the most vindictive son of a bitch this Game has ever seen._ **

**_You’ve been cold and thirsty and weak for far too long. Your friends have had everything. EVERYTHING._ **

**_Well, maybe it’s time for them to see what it’s like to have it all taken from them, bit by bit by god damn bit._ **

**_Maybe you’ll make them fucking PAY._ **

**_Because maybe they deserve it._ **

**_Because maybe they’re only getting what was always coming to them._ **

**_Because maybe you aren’t some Maid to be forced to serve the Game and all its machinations, or a Bard abused by their Aspect for destruction and mayhem, or a Sylph thrown around by the currents of her own Power as she tries to find her place in it._ **

**_Because…_ **

**_Because once upon a time, there was a boy who had nothing. Everyone around him had everything, and all he asked was for life to grant him the slightest of favors, for fortune to grant him one good turn of luck, for fate to lead him to something that would make the trials all worthwhile. But life and fortune and fate are nothing but miserly devils, clutching to themselves what they gave to everyone else but you. The Game wanted the boy to learn his place, to learn to make do with the little he was given and make it work._ **

**_Well, the boy Learned._ **

**_But he sure as hell isn’t Learning what they wanted him to._ **

**_You think that maybe it’s time to take what life and fortune and fate never gave you._ **


	94. The Maid of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was pretty normal.

What, is that strange? Life’s been pretty good for you so far, you don’t need to complicate it with unnecessary angst or anything like that. You’ve never had anything particularly tragic or horrible happen to you or anything like that. Sure, your Sis likes to brood and sigh and be miserable, but that’s been true ever since she took that Drama class, and really she’s just a big baby pretending to be an actress.

It’s probably her fault that you lost any love of adventure and drama and such.

It’s kind of hard to be excited about that sort of thing when your Sis is always going on and on and on about it like a record on repeat. It’s just so ridiculous.

And your _friends_. Man, what drama queens! The Prince lives on a _boat_ for heaven’s sake, and is always going on about pirate attacks and storms and high-seas naval warfare like it’s the 17 th century and he’s some pirate or privateer or whatever. And the Seer is always so doom-and-gloom; she writes angst-y poetry about how horrible life is and how nobody understands her and how the world’s going to end, and then she ‘accidentally’ sends it to you and tells you to never, under any circumstance, read it and tell her how good it was. And the Bard!

Man, you don’t even want to _go_ there, but let’s just say that you are pretty sick and tired of proofreading his love notes for him. ‘Unrequited Love’ is a cliché that does _not_ belong in real life. 

So you’re surrounded by crazy people is the long and short of it, really. Being the fulcrum on which the antics of your circle of friends and family swing was not what you intended to be doing so early in your life, but sometimes you just sort of have to knuckle down and make do. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

And if that had been all, well, you could have made that work. You’ve always been a persevering sort, after all. But _nope_. Of _course_ that’s not all. No, then the craziness that is your life decides to kick it up a notch and bombard you with ballistic burning boulders.

And you were just beginning to convince yourself that the Seer was just being angst-y about the whole ‘end of the world’ thing, too.

So here you are, in an absolutely _ridiculous_ Game filled with frogs and chess-piece people and floaty-sprite versions of your dead bird, who you loved dearly when she was alive but you love a little bit less now that she can talk and scold you about your rather weak sense of adventure.

Well, excuse you for trying to be the _sensible_ one around here! It’s been three hours into it and the Prince has already gone off the deep end with some sort of revenge obsession against one of the chess-people, and the Seer’s gone all inky-black and is making even _less_ sense than usual when she speaks, and the Bard’s started muttering to himself in iambic pentameter in a way that makes you think that he plans on getting some use out of his ‘guitarkind’ specibus in a more _percussive_ way than is normal.

And here you are, doing your best to solve your absurd little Quests for your absurd little frilled-lizard consorts, and trying to wake up the Forge on your absurd little planet so you can catch all of the absurd little frogs that are just all over the place.

And right about then is when the _trolls_ start talking to you.

And hey, who knew, apparently there are twelve all-new sorts of dementia for you to learn about! It was bad enough when you had to keep _three_ crazy people from going around and making problems, but now you’re doing it with twelve sociopathic aliens who you can’t even interact with in person!

Really, why is everyone so obsessed with Adventure and Romance and Drama? Why do all of these Players of this stupid Game have to all go Power-hungry or get obsessed with Vengeance or just go straight, plain Crazy?

_Why does every little thing need to be so important you have to say it in Capital Letters?_

And whoops, look at that, now that absurd little Agent, the Courtyard Dummy or whatever his name was, is a detective-newt-butterfly-knight monster who inexplicably has the ability to shoot lightning when he sneezes, all because someone decided it was an _excellent idea_ to give him the necklace or bracelet or whatever it was that gave the chess-piece people superpowers.

Oh, and look at that, there’s some white-text jerk who’s being all mysterious and omniscient and manipulative and stuff, and wouldn’t you know it, having to highlight all his text is really, really annoying!

All you want to do is make this stupid Universe Frog so you can go to the New World and maybe just take a nap or something. Is that so much to ask?

Apparently so, because hey, now the center of the Battlefield is apparently _a giant bomb_.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was pretty normal. She liked normal things, and had normal hobbies, and did normal chores, and just wanted to grow up to be the normal girl who had a normal life. But apparently normal isn’t _interesting_ enough, so now she has to deal with crazy friends and angry trolls and stupid monsters and a game where apparently the Frog is the Universe, which obviously means that someone has to go _breed frogs_ , which is messy and boring and exhausting, but the thing is, you know the Truth of it all.

The Truth of the Maid is that when everyone else is obsessed with Adventure and Drama and Romance and Tragedy and Weird Time Stuff, when everybody’s gone off the deep end and kept on diving, when the world makes absolutely no sense anymore, _someone has to breed the god damn Universe Frog_.

And it might as well be you.


	95. The Knight of Space

Once upon a time, there was a boy who died.

But that’s in the past. It’s unimportant, now. Your death was a transient thing, fleeting and almost painless. It was also a necessary thing, because now you know the things you need to know.

Your friends need help, and right now you’re the only one who can give it to them.

You seem to have awakened on the Battlefield. Your old clothes are gone, now replaced by the strange clothing of your Godhood. Your new coif fits tightly onto your head, and these dark, black clothes fit better than any clothing you’ve ever worn.

You… aren’t exactly sure about the cape, though.

You suppose that your old clothes aren’t exactly gone, come to think of it. They’re still on your dead body, on your old Land. What a strange thought.

You look to your side, and find a sword embedded in the checker-board ground beside you. It looks like your Denizen came through on her part of the deal after all. You pull it from the ground, and examine it. It’s white and gold, and looks almost fragile in your hand, as if it were made of glass and spun sugar instead of steel, but you know there is nothing stronger in Sburb than the Fang of Echidna.

Not even those accursed Barbs.

You look up at the sky, and see the darkness gathering in the clouds.

You don’t have much time. A monster is coming, one who wants to destroy all of Skaia. And you can’t let that happen.

Your friends are depending on you, now.

You have to finish the Game, one way or another.

You know now for certain what you once suspected; that while some Sessions are rendered stillborn by Causality and Paradox, while some Sessions are created Null and Void, _this is not one of them_. This Game is still winnable. This Session can yet be completed.

Your World can still come to pass. And, as the Knight, it is your job to make it so.

And the first, and greatest, obstacle on that path is descending from the heavens above you.

She glides down, slowly, on black wings that capture the light around them and gather them into glimmering, iridescent points that make shifting, alien constellations in the aura around her. On her back is a quiver full of arrows, and even this far away you can feel their influence whispering to you, the Prospit Dreamer. In her hands she holds a bow, taller than her, and its bowstring looks like black oil; from time to time, errant drops of oil float away from it, as if ignoring gravity entirely. Beside her are her two Servants, who drift like marionettes with their strings cut, unseeing and unfeeling until she needs them to do her bidding.

Her eyes are white, white, white. You’d think her blind if you didn’t know better.

The Witch comes to a stop, floating several feet above the ground, and her two Servants, the Bard and Maid she has suborned to her service, touch down lightly under her. She opens her mouth, and nothing but Whispers come out of it, Whispers that ask you and cajole you and _beg you_ to let her pass, to let her take the Tumor from the heart of Skaia and to let her do the Plan that she is so sure, so very, very sure will save them all. The Bard and the Maid mimic her words, blankly, unknowing.

And there is a part of you that wants to listen. It is a part unrelated to the tendrils of power the Witch attempts to worm into your mind, a part unrelated to the Whispers of the Horrorterrors that emanate from the Barbs, those cursed arrows that control the Witch as surely as she controls the Bard and Maid.

It is the part of you that just wants your friends back. It is the part of you that doesn’t want to do this.

But you are the Knight of Space, and that means that you have to fight for your Cause. Right now, you have to save the Game.

Right now, you have to save your friends. Even if you have to beat some sense into them to do it.

She stops speaking, and draws a Barb from her quiver. She lays it on her bow, and the darkness around her starts whispering and trembling as she prepares to let loose one of the Barbs of Annihilation, and end the threat you have become.

She lets it fly, and Reality screams as the Barb passes through it, seeking your heart.

And it meets the blade of your Fang, instead.

The Barb shatters as it strikes, and Reality reasserts itself once more.

The Bard and Maid move forward, readying their weapons, but you don’t give them time to react. You _move_ , and are there instantly, giving the Bard a heavy punch to the face and parrying the Maid’s attempt at a strike. Her ivory blade clashes against yours, bone against steel, and the Bard brings his halberd-like shovel to bear, ponderous and slow. You have to be careful; neither of them are in their own minds right now, and neither of them have dreamselves to use if they die. So you move and weave, you flash and blink from place to place, never where they expect you to be, as you wear them down, bit by bit, before knocking their heads together for a 2x Knockout Combo.

They sink to the ground, and you turn to the Witch, to see a flurry of Barbs tearing towards you.

You can’t let them hit you, but you can’t just dodge either, can’t let them impact the Battlefield, because nothing would survive that. So you _move_ to where you need to be, to parry and strike each dark arrow as it approaches you. You move faster than should be physically possible, but you are the Knight, and this is what you do.

Each arrow strikes your sword, and falls, shattered and useless, to the ground.

With a scream, the Witch raises her bow once more, but you _move_ , and are there in front of her.

You wish you didn’t have to do this.

The Witch stops screaming, stops Whispering, and you can feel the tenuous strands of her power disappear from your mind as she dies upon your sword. She falls, and you catch her. You watch the darkness bleed out of her, and watch the white fade from her eyes, and watch the blackness waft away on the wind.

Your other friends stir, the Witch’s control gone from their minds. The last Barb falls from her quiver, and it cracks and dies before it touches the ground as the Whispers disappear entirely.

You hold her to you, and weep.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who died. But before he died, he saw his best friend change into something twisted, something _wrong_ , something to be used and tossed aside by uncaring monsters. He watched her become an enemy. And when it came time, he let her kill him upon his Bed, because he knew what he had to do. He had to right what had gone wrong. He had to save his friends.

He had to save her, even if he had to kill her to do it.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who died, and came back to life. And if you can, you’re going to make that _her_ story, too.

You gather her in your arms, and think of her Land, think of her Quest Bed, and _move_.

It will all be better soon.

You swear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is definitely different from the others; it focuses more on movement and cause-and-effect than most of them do. It still has its share of metaphor and simile-heavy description, but I liked the idea of making this Knight more physical. 
> 
> And if I were to somehow get one single Title animated or comic'd, it would be this one. Come on, it would be SO COOL.


	96. The Heir of Space

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had it all.

I guess that was true, for a while. After all, for a few brief hours, I _did_ have it all, didn’t I?

It’s sad, then, that it took one bad choice for me to lose it all. One prideful decision.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who made a mistake.

I never thought that hubris, of all things, would be my downfall. Shyness, perhaps, or cowardice. Those things I could have seen. My horrible songs, maybe. I’ve always loved singing, and never been particularly good at it; there would have been a hilarious sort of irony in my death being due to my own admittedly bad singing. But I’ve never been confident, never been a risk-taker or a daredevil.

But here I am, staring at the consequences of my own pride, while I try to make a decision.

_Heir-y, Heir-y, so contrary, faced a Queen and got unwary._

Not that there’s much to see, right now. It’s all just… black. Inescapably black. It’s nothing like the darkness of the Farthest Reaches; that dark void crawls with movement and life, with the impression of _something_ just beyond your gaze, eternally out of sight, but always _there_.

This, instead, is the complete absence of light. The complete absence of _anything_. This is where the laws of Space go to die.

It’s pulling me, even now, tugging at my body like a reverse wind, but I am unmoved. Nothing moves me unless I want it to. One of the many perks of my Godhood. One of my many, many strengths.

_Mover, shaker, combo breaker, giver, taker, no one breaks her._

I am the Heir of Space. And for a time, that meant something. It meant that, with but a thought, I could be anywhere, on any Land or moon or city, behind an enemy or in front of a friend. It meant that nothing could move me, nothing could deter me from my path, as I was both immovable object and unstoppable force. It meant that mass and matter and gravity and volume and momentum were all but tools for me to wield as I wished. It meant that the World, the Universe, was my plaything.

It meant that, for once, I could have some confidence in myself.

I’ve always been obsessed with fairy tales. Embarrassing, at times, but true. Princes and princesses, witches and trolls and fairies, demons and castles and magic. Is it any wonder that Sburb seemed like a dream come true? Is it any wonder that I wanted to succeed, to win?

Is it any wonder I wanted a happy ending?

It seemed so simple, at the time. All I had to do was give my friends the same power I had, to help them achieve that same Godhood that had changed everything for me.  

All I had to do was kill them.

And they understood. Most of them did, at least. They were still angry, but there’s only so angry you can be when you have awesome new powers and are now functionally immortal. And it made sense, didn’t it? We were meant to have this power. We were meant to _use_ it. Because otherwise, we were going to lose.

And I wasn’t going to lose. Not now that I had all of this power, where I had had nothing before.

Stupid.

The turning point was, as it is with so many of the Sessions of this Game, the fight with the Black Queen.

 Twelve Gods faced a Queen. Twelve kids faced an anthropomorphic chess piece. Twelve Players faced the Final Boss.

The fight was so very, very simple. I knew I could end it in a second, merely a _second_ , but this wasn’t just my fight, so I let it play out, let my friends fight the final boss of the Game, because this was the way the stories go; the last, climactic fight with the villain, with the Reward just in sight.

She was tougher than I thought she’d be.

Much tougher.

_Heart is broken, Blood is shed, Mind has shattered, Light has fled._

_Breath is fading, Hope’s a lie, Life is dying, Doom is nigh._

_Void is spreading, Rage has won, Time is ending, Space is done._

The battle quickly turned against us. She had been prototyped twelve times, so of course she was tough. She was the final boss, so of course she was tough. She was the Queen, and the Queen is the strongest piece on the board, right? But we were gods, all twelve of us, and so I let it go on.

Until my friend was almost killed. It was only luck, really, that kept him alive. Appropriate, considering his Aspect, but enough was enough.

I was going to end this fight. I was going to show this Game just what it meant, to be the Heir of Space.

I was going to prove to Sburb that it had no idea what it was doing when it gave me this power.

 _Heir-y, Heir-y, so unwary_.

And with a snap of my fingers, I do it. I unleash the fullest extent of my power on the Queen. I pull apart the very matter of her being, and disassemble her to her most basic parts, and shatter those parts into nothingness. I take the very essence of her, and turn it on itself.

I take the Space of her being, and _invert_ it into utter Oblivion.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

_Heir-y, Heir-y, so unwary._

I turned the Black Queen into a point singularity.

A black hole.

And now it pulls at me, and pulls at my friends, and though I am keeping us safe, keeping us _here_ , the singularity is growing, increasing in strength. It’s starting to pull apart the Battlefield. Even now, I see our Lands pull closer and closer.

Soon, even I won’t be strong enough to keep us out of its reach.

I know it will simply grow and grow. Eventually it will devour this Session.

Maybe it will even make its way into the Farthest Reaches.

And so I stand, feeling the pull of Oblivion on my clothes and hair and being, feeling time slip through my fingers, and I have to make a decision.

Once upon a time, I was a girl who was given power. I was a girl who finally had the strength to do what she needed to do to help her friends, to win her Game, to make it all worthwhile.

And then I screwed up.

I let my pride win out, and showed off when I should have simply ended it. I wanted to prove something, to the Game, to the Queen, to myself, about my own power, about my Godhood, and now it was all going to come to naught.

_This is the way the world ends._

_This is the way the world ends._

_This is the way the world ends._

_Not with a Scratch, but with Oblivion._

Unless.

Unless there was a way to fix it.

I am the Heir of Space, and even though this Oblivion in front of me is the opposite of me, the opposite of my powers, it is something I created. And I might be able to stop it.

The question is, then; will I come back?

Will I survive?

I don’t have long. Not if I’m going to fix this. But I have time enough to look my friends in the eyes, to see the despair in their eyes. I have enough time to find the answer to my question.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if I survive. As long as I fix this.

So I move them, banish them to the farthest Land in our Session, where they will be safe for a few minutes longer. And I dive into the Oblivion of my own making.

I can fix this.

And I am comforted by one small fact, as I dive into the singularity.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. She loved to sing, even though she didn’t sing very well. She loved to read fairy tales, even when she grew older, even when she should have grown disillusioned with the morals and ideals they represented. She loved her friends, very dearly, and would do anything for them.

And she knew the way the best stories always ended.

Because every story that begins with _once upon a time_ ends with another phrase that I believe in, utterly and completely.

_And they lived happily ever after._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What she doesn't know is that, in an alternate timeline, her horrible singing actually DOES kill her. And it's pretty ironic! As it turns out, asking her tone-deaf patron-troll whether or not to serenade the Denizen into acquiescence is a really bad idea!
> 
> Who'd have thought?
> 
> Also I went back and forth on the random lyrics thing? But when I thought up the _Heir-y, Heir-y_ bit I couldn't help but work that in.


	97. The Muse of Rage

My Quest is to Influence, and in Influencing, Dominate. This is my purpose as the Muse of Rage, one of the Masters, and though I am of Rage, it will never be my own.

Of course, why would I want it to be? Rage is for the common folk, the morass of dumbasses, the infinite illiterate, the eternally, terminally stupid that fill the whole god damn world.

I am the Muse, and my Work is to Inspire. And, by god, it is such an easy work to accomplish!

The Internet is my playground to rule. I am the master of the symbolic slides, queen of the figurative jungle gym, princess of the allegorical sandbox, and all the other fucking newbs had better remember that. Mine is the voice that enrages the whining, crying children who can barely form coherent sentences with the pathetic pile of mush they call ‘their brains’.

When you go to watch your cute cat video on Youtube, it is my insulting, purposefully misspelled comment, above all others, which will make you fear for the collective sanity of humankind. Every cocksure moron who has the slightest of delusions of his own imaginary grandeur will be harshly reprimanded by my emoticons. 4chan has named me their queen, even as attempt to find some way to shock me into submission, to find the one vile, bleach-worthy picture that might get my mythical, nonexistent goat(se). These twelve so called ‘trolls’ who have attempted to, in their childish, heavy-handed way, ‘torment’ me have found me to be an opponent unlike any they have ever faced before. I am a wall of verbal fire, burning even as I deflect their pitiful insults and ‘prophecies’, because these ‘trolls’ have entered a game I’ve been playing all my life.

And my secret lies in the truth of the Muse; for I am as unflappable as the mightiest of trees, as immovable as the sturdiest of mountains, as frost-fucking cold as the icy mass of the Antarctic itself. I am the eye of the storm of my Rage, as I inspire the deepest of fury in all I speak to, but never feel the slightest bit of it myself. I am the uncaring rock in the sea of idiocy, standing tall as the butthurt waves crash impotently against me, and then ragequit away.  I am the dealer of the sickest burns the world has seen since the corpse-burning of the Black Plague, and mine are the ill-fire hands that will enrage the heavens. I serve my Fury as if I had been trained by the secretive Butlers of Butler Island, as if their server-jutsu ran in my very blood. I am ice fucking _cold_ , and there’s not a fire in the world that can touch me.

It’s a little thing called state control, _bitches_.

The World is my Playground, but even it began to bore me. There’s only so much a girl can do to the collective sanity of humankind before it starts to crumble in on its own weight, after all. This game of mine begins to drag, but then something new enters the horizon of my domain.

Sburb.

Mother. Fucking. Sburb.

Fire rains down in the opening play of a very new kind of game, but I have no fear. I’ve been playing games with the world all of my god damn life. So why does Sburb think this brand new Game is going to be any different?

After all, I already have a plan.

Mine is to Inspire, so that others may do their Work, but to never do it myself. And the Game has given me so many tools to use.  

In my Presence, do others find their Inspiration. In my Words, do others find their Meaning. In my Influence, do others find their Calling.

I am the Muse, motherfuckers, and every god damn one of you is my tool to command. You are my Pawns, in the grandest Game of them all. 

Let Sburb raise its armies against me. I have my own, in the Furies of my Players, my Pawns. Let these feeble constructs smash, like the wind against the mountain, against my Knight, for in his Wrath, he is unbreakable. Let these pathetic weaklings fall, like leaves in the breeze, at the spells of my Mage, for in his Fury, he is unstoppable. Let these armies be hunted, like the prey they really are, by the thirst of my Thief, for in his Lunacy, he is unquenchable.

Their Agents will be destroyed by my Rogue, whose Maddened eyes will find them wherever they hide. Their city will be devastated by my Heir, whose Fevered hands will leave only ashes in his wake. Their plots will be foiled by my Maid, whose Eldritch thoughts will know their every move.

I Inspire, and so my Pawns will destroy the constructs keeping us from our Reward. Derse will burn. Prospit will crumble. The Lands will be drenched in Grist. And we will stand on that final pedestal, and I will open the Door to our Reward.

And it’ll be the first and only action I’ve ever had to make myself in this poor, unsuspecting Game.

I am the Muse, and I am one of the Masters.

And there is a good motherfucking reason Sburb makes so few of us.

Put your head between your legs and pray, you insignificant little observers. Because one day, I’ll be knocking on your doors.

I am the Muse of Rage, and my Quest is to Influence, and in Influencing, Dominate everything you've ever known.  

So peace out for now, _bitches_.


	98. The Mage of Light

You roll the coin across your fingers, slowly, closely examining its gilded surface. Your caste symbol decorates one side of it. The sunburst symbol of your Aspect decorates the other.

It weighs heavier on your mind than in your hand.

_Heads or tails?_

The coin was a gift, freely given to you years ago by a man you have never met in person; a strange man who typed in white text and named himself the Professor. It had come in a small, black box, engraved with ten words. _For when you need it, and not a moment before._

As a psychic, one of the most powerful psychics Alternia has ever seen, you can feel the potential in the coin. There is power, there. Waiting. But even you have no idea what the coin can do.

And you have never before needed its power.

Never.

Before the Game, you were a force to be reckoned with. No one could touch you. Nothing would ever have been a threat to you. Had you wished it, you could have torn the world asunder, ripped it to fiery shreds and tossed away the ashes.

And, more importantly than that, you had will. You had an iron heart, and enough ice in your veins to cause even the most bloodthirsty of trollkind to cower in your presence. The Empire would have learned to fear your very name, in time.

But it was Sgrub that tore apart your world, burned it to dust and ashes, and massacred the Empire that you had sought to overcome. It was the Game’s will, now, that guided you, and forced you to be a pawn, and play by its rules.

And in return, it gave you power to dwarf even what you had before.

 _Mage_. That is what the Game calls you, now. Wielder of Power, mover of mountains, destroyer of all who stand before you. Mage.

Strange, then, that it amounted to nothing in the end. All that power, and nothing to show for it but exile to a dark, grey meteor in the outskirts of the Medium. All that power, and nothing to reward you but failure and fear and a mighty Demon that even you cannot overcome, with all of your might. All that power, and here you are.

 _For when you need it, and not a moment before._  

A thousand times you might have used this coin, wielded its power, and a thousand times you did not.

And all for one simple reason.

You have no idea what it will do. And that, not knowing, is what frightens you the most.

But now you, mighty and powerful, are overcome by fear, fear of failure, fear of death, fear of the Demon. You, of iron will and icy veins, are overcome by doubt, hesitation, and uncertainty. You, with all of your ambition, face a dirty, cowering end, on a dank, grey meteor, in the middle of dark space.

You, the Mage, are powerless.

 _For when you need it, and not a moment before_.

So now, you consider the power you have never needed before, the power you know nothing of, the power that could solve all of your problems or curse you to oblivion forever.

Because you are the Mage of Light, and the power is there, there for you to take, even if you know not what it is. You will have to trust in luck, and take a chance, because yours is to have Power, without Control. And the moment you take this leap of faith, it will all be out of your control. You will have to leave it to chance.

 _Not a moment before_.

Heads or tails?

You take a deep breath, flip the coin, and watch the lightshow begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a heck of a hiatus!


	99. The Page of Light

Sometimes you wonder why the world is out to get you. What insult could you possibly have given it? What offense could warrant the horrible, rotten luck you seem to have been granted since the day you were born?

Maybe your father broke a crippled gypsy’s mirror or something.

Suffice it to say, whatever caused it, you’ve had terrible luck your whole life. Sweet, gentle animals go berserk on you for no reason, trees go out of their way to drop branches and debris upon your head, and you’ve had one too many close calls with lightning strikes to be coincidence. Cars seem to speed right at you the moment you cross a street, peanuts seem to find their way into your peanut-allergy-safe trail-mix, and you always pin the donkey on the head, not the tail.

And the less you think about that time in the department store, the better. You’re still banned after that incident in the paint supplies aisle.

You’ve tried every good-luck charm in the book, of course. You have a pocket full of rabbit feet (both from stuffed rabbits and one that you think is from a real rabbit), a little baggie of salt to toss over your shoulder, and more four-leaf clovers hanging from your neck than you can shake an angry black cat at.

None of it helps.

And then, like the terrible icing on top of the failcake, the world ends. Just your luck, isn’t it?

But hey, at least you get to be part of a terribly designed real life video game, filled with amateurish writing, a nonsensical plot, nebulous goals, and more bugs than Superman 64.

Seriously, it’s like the designers hired a dead raccoon for their QA team and called it a day.

On the ‘bright’ side, you’re the Page of Light. Which means something or another, apparently? Your deadrabbitsprite is really unhelpful in that regard. Something about fortune and learning and stuff.

Which might be a good thing; after all, if it’s all about fortune and luck, maybe you can turn all that bad luck around!

Nope. Your first fight in the game, you trip over a root and send both you and the imp rolling down a steep hill for nearly five minutes. By the time it’s over, you’re achy and sore, and the imp is nothing but gently rolling grist. It only gets worse from there.

One time, you’re trying to help a friend on his planet, and an ogre tries to hit you. Of course, instead of hitting you he hits a nearby pipe, releasing a jet of steam that blows you into a nearby pit and vaporizes the ogre.

Another time, back on your planet, a basilisk goes for your head and instead knocks over the fragile tree behind you, starting a chain reaction of collapsing trees that flattens a forest, seventeen ogres, three basilisks, a hundred imps, and your foot.

Truly, your luck is terrible.

What’s strange is that your friends seem to all argue for your time. They all try to bring you onto their planets so you can help them with their quest, even though you’re really terrible at this game. It seems like whenever you try to do anything, things seem to go horribly wrong all over the place, leaving destruction and dead monsters in its wake. Why would they want the help of someone who only brings calamity and ruin with him? You have no idea.

It’s only later, near the end of it all, that you have a fantastic idea. What if your terrible, horrible luck could be used as some sort of weapon? You bring this idea up with your friends, who look strangely guilty as they agree with you and tell you how good of an idea it is. One of them mutters something about ‘him finally getting it’ but you have no idea what that means, so you ignore him and prepare to finally have your terrible luck do something constructive.

And maybe you can help your luck to be even _worse_.

So it is that you find yourself at the palace in Derse, fully prepared for your fight. You come to the Queen, who glares at you from her throne, mighty and powerful, and you respectfully ask her for just a few minutes to prepare. Then you get to work.

You set up a dozen ladders and run under each one. You spill all the salt you managed to get your hands on, and don’t throw a single pinch of it over your shoulder. You release all of the black cats you found, and kick them all. You set up a hundred horseshoes upside down (which, obviously, dumps all the luck out), and you incinerate all of your rabbits feet and four leaf clovers. And, last but not least, you bring out the biggest mirror that alchemizing and treasure hunting could supply you with, and break it with a single punch.

Then you smugly look at the Black Queen, who is looking as bemused as it is possible for a carapace to look, and you tell her to take her best shot.

Then you sneeze, which sends you stumbling backwards, where you trip over a cat, into a ladder, which knocks down the gigantic mirror stand, which falls on the Black Queen, which causes her to trip directly onto a perfectly positioned shard of glass.

And then somehow the ceiling collapses on you.

You are the Page of Light, meant to learn the true meaning of Fortune, meant to know what it is like to have none, and meant to find a way to use that lack to better yourself as a person and a warrior. And if that means tripping over the occasional nonexistent root, well, perhaps you’re okay with that.

And maybe you forgive your dad for punching that crippled gypsy’s mirror.


	100. The Sylph of Light

Safe.

That’s all you’ve ever wanted to be.

You never wanted adventure and excitement. You never wanted danger. You wanted a quiet life. You wanted to grow your flowers, and tend your garden. You wanted to open a flower shop, and maybe discover a new kind of rose, and wanted to be able to live out in the country, in wide green fields and maybe a nice, small forest where you could walk when the sun was out and the breeze was cool, and perhaps a small brook you could sit by to watch the water flow and the clouds go by.

You never wanted your home to burn.

But this is the path that fortune has placed before you.

Sburb has named you Sylph, and so it names you as powerless, and weak, and subject to the whimsies of your Aspect. The Light pulls you, luck and fortune guiding your every step, because the fate of the Sylph is to be part of the Current, part of the Flow, or be pulled in by the undertow.

And you cannot help but be pulled. Fate seems to drag you from battle to puzzle to quest, whether you want it or not. Random chance and circumstance maneuver you to where you need to be, no matter how little you want to be there.

Perhaps if you were different, you might have been able to guide your own path. But you were never as adaptable as the Knight, who has made the Quest of the Game his own, as if he’d been seeking a purpose his entire life. You were never as willful as the Prince, who saw a chance to gain the sort of strength and power he had always felt he’d lacked, and decided to seize it. You were never as high-minded as the Witch, who saw the grand Purpose behind the game as something noble, something that Had To Be Done, and decided to do it, for the good of all.

You just wanted everything to be quiet.

You tried to find a way to cope, regardless of it all. Between the Quests and the Echeladder, between battles and schemes and the grand scope of the Game, you found ways to have something like the quiet life you always wanted. Your groundhog Consorts, excitable but compassionate, become dear friends of yours; you teach them everything you know about gardening, and soon the entire field around your home is cultivated with wild, fantastical flowers of all shapes and sizes. The sky of your land may not be blue, but it is filled with strange, wonderful clouds, and the green rivers may be strangely alien, but they are beautiful nonetheless. This may not be the countryside of your dreams, but it is dreamlike in its own way, and when the whimsies of fate are not throwing you into another battle, another puzzle, another step of the Quest, you come back here, and feel almost at home.

It all changes when the Agents come into play.

Fate moves you into position, a pawn in its Game, as always. Something has changed on the battlefield of Skaia, a new factor entered play, and by random chance and circumstance you find yourself alongside your fellow Players as a ringed Archagent tears through the battlefield.

It is a difficult battle, fought alongside Prospitians and the White King himself, but for a time, you are able to drive him away. And so, as soon as you can, you return to your home.

And for a second time, you find your home burning.

The gardens are nothing but black ash and glowing cinders, wafting slowly away in the wind. Your house is a burnt out shell, a barely-standing frame of blackened timbers. Your Consorts, those who could not get away, are dead.

You find yourself kneeling, and you don’t remember falling down. Everything is quiet, but there is a roar in your ears that has no discernible source. You are silent, but in your heart, you are _screaming_.

Again, your home has burned, and again, you could do nothing about it. Because the Game had decided you needed to be elsewhere, you could do nothing. Because random chance and circumstance had guided your feet away from here in its time of need, you could do nothing.

It is here, heart-broken and grief-stricken, that something changes. The roar in your ears fades, and silence replaces it. Your tears dry up, slowly but surely, and you realize that you will never cry again. Your heart hardens, and the grief gives way to something else.

Never again.

You have let the Game force your path, put you in your paces, because you never wanted to be here. And here, now, is the result of that.

Ashes.

And now you have to ask yourself a question.

Who are you, Sylph?

Are you just a coward, a weakling, a scared little girl to be led by the nose? Are you the wallflower, the shrinking violet, the gentle blossom? Will you be nothing but a tended rose, picked clean of barbs and bristles?

No.

You are the Sylph of Light, and yours is to find the Balance; you may not be a Knight or a Prince or a Witch, someone who seizes control and bends their aspect to their will, but you are not a Maid, either; you are no slave to be mastered, no fool to be forced into the path that random chance and circumstance would force you into.

You are the Sylph, and now you know; it may be death to fight against the tide, but the tide will drag you down regardless if you do nothing. You must _swim_.

In the ashes of your home, you make your vow.

You will show this Game your _thorns_.


	101. The Maid of Light

Your fingers are starting to hurt. This is likely due to the stress you’re putting them under. After all, you’ve been holding onto this twisted iron bar for nearly an hour, now. If you were still a normal girl, unmodified by the statistics of the Game, your hands would have given out long before now, and you would already have plunged into the vast darkness below.

Unfortunately, you still aren’t strong enough to pull yourself up the twisted iron bar, and back onto the platform you are so precariously dangling under.

So, unable to pull yourself up, weakening more and more every moment, and somewhat preoccupied by the sight of the endless abyss below you, an unrelated thought bubbles to the surface of your mind.

There is a subtle art to being a Maid.

Subtlety is a concept that Sburb, on the surface, would appear to lack. After all, it did destroy the Earth with a literal meteor storm. After that, how could it possibly claim to hold any subtlety whatsoever?

But perhaps that is the true beauty of the Game; that something so asinine, so goddamn ridiculous, something that forces you to seriously consider the importance of frog breeding at a cosmic level, the heroism and villainy of chess-piece people, the welfare of brightly colored idiotic animal villagers, and the frankly insane tangle of timelines and causality that sent you hurling from Veil to Meteor to Earth to Sburb, still has a core sense of logic and reasoning that is among the most intricate of creations you’ve ever had the chance to witness.

In that way, Sburb is much like the spirograph it so frequently uses as its symbol; seemingly simple, but follow the curves and the mind can become overwhelmed by its intricacy.

Hmm. Overwhelming. Yes, that is the word for it.

Your fingers slip a bit, and with a jerk of your shoulder, you grasp the bar tighter. Not long now.

The subtleties of Sburb are truly most evident in the Roles of the Game, you think. How else can that all-important quality, the Title you are granted upon your entrance into the Game, fit you and your friends so very, very well? There are so many factors in play, so many reasons you might have made a good Mage or Knight or Witch, but instead you were the Maid, and it is only now that you are beginning to understand that there was never any other Class that would have fit you.

Because in order to succeed, the Maid must have a quality that none of your friends could ever have.

The burn in your arms has long since passed the point of ‘uncomfortable’, and is rapidly approaching ‘unbearable’.

Some might think the Maid’s an easy fate; after all, all you have to do is give up, and allow the Power to guide you as it will. Others might think it impossible; the idea of giving up your freedom of will to an outside force, especially something so abstract as the Aspects of the Game, is completely and utterly foreign to them.

But whether they see it as easy or hard, no one ever sees the fate of the Maid as a _good_ thing, and that is how you are different.

The Role of the Maid is not simply to be a Slave. It is to Submit, and that is an entirely different thing, in your eyes. It is to recognize that there is a path that needs to be followed, and you alone are unable to know where to place your feet. Only with the Light as your guide can you do what has to be done.

Being a Maid does not have to be about giving up yourself. It only means that you must know how to Surrender.

And there is freedom in that.

So now, driven by chance and fortune, guided by the Light, your path has led you here, hanging precariously from a ledge, unable to pull yourself up, and contemplating the black void beneath you. The problem is, you are already fully aware of what you must do.

You are the Maid of Light, and you must be guided by your Aspect, and in being guided, you will find the end you are looking for. You must know how, and when, to Submit, to Surrender to the will of something that is not yourself.

And any other, in your position, would cling tightly to what they considered their ‘freedom’. They clutch tightly to their choices, and in doing so, bind themselves more completely than you have ever been bound yourself.

To win, the Maid cannot always hold on to her will, her choices, her freedom. She has to know when to Let Go.

And, with a deep breath, and one last look, you do.

Time to take a leap of faith.


	102. The Bard of Light

If there was one thing, and one thing alone, that you loved best about your friends, it would be the fact that they introduced you to techno.

Most popular music, music that you think normal people would like, bored you to tears. Pop was annoying, country nail-bitingly horrible, and rap made you want to tear out your own eardrums. But techno, techno was the way to go for an introverted shut-in. Techno you took in and made your own, and on your own you threw yourself raves and parties with music you mixed yourself. You were a DJ for an audience of nonexistent ghosts and imaginary wraiths, and every pretend person jumped and danced and cheered you on.

Here, a bit of trance, soft and slow but with a steady pulse, like a heartbeat, all set to soft colors and gentle mood lighting, perfect for rainy afternoons and aimless meandering. Or how about some house techno, with a beat you can jog to, something to set strobe lights going, something to set people jumping with glowing bracelets and grinding to the sound. Or how about some dubstep, loud and dirty and screeching, high energy and frenetic and laser-lit, for when you want to make it sound like the world’s coming to an end.

Actually, the world ending could have used a dubstep soundtrack.

Note to self; your friends probably wouldn’t find that funny.

And so, you’re thrust into the Game, a Bard of Light, and as luck would have it, it’s right up your alley. Music can have power here, strength and meaning beyond even what it had in the real world, before it all went up in flames. Here, your music is your weapon.

And what a weapon it is.

The Prismusicer’s Batons turn sound into light, and it’s with them that you orchestrate the destruction of your enemies. Every note becomes a flash of light, bars of blue and red and green that sear the earth, strobe-light explosions that tear apart your foes, and bright white glows that eat away at everything they touch.

In the real world, your music overwhelmed the senses. Here, it overwhelms your enemies, truly and utterly. The World trembles to the Beat and bows before the Light.

Here, unlike the real world, you can hold your head up high before the masses, proud and confident as they bow before your talent.

And soon, by your own hand, you make yourself a God among mere mortals.

But there are two who do not bow. They are King and Queen, dark and powerful, but even they should tremble before the Beat.

And so it is that you set forth your plan. Your friends have the rest of the Game under control. But these last two enemies, these last unyielding foes, are yours.

They are ready for you, in the palace of Derse.

Violin strings sway in the air from a thousand spidery fingers in a nonexistent breeze, like razor wire singing a thousand sharp melodies. A hundred spindly limbs grasp at the air and claw at the ground and hold tight to their bodies, and red light runs along them, glowing in runic swirls and jagged symbols. Each has a single red eye in the center of their forehead, knowing and powerful and hateful. The air around them hums with violin-string power, a subtle, frightening tune to counter your bone-rattling bass.

Your fight is intense. You are a God, and so you are powerful. Your Batons are mighty, your Beat is thunderous, your Light is magnificent. Chaos reigns in the battlefield as you shake Derse to its core, and banish away even the most fleeting of shadows. You are the Raver, the DJ, the Maestro. You are the Bard, and you will show them what that means.

But they are King and Queen, and they show you their power in return, in blood-red light and razor notes and countless grasping limbs, as they match you blow for blow.

And, note by note, blow by blow, they begin to overwhelm you.

But you are the Bard, and your fate, your destiny, is to put aside yourself, and let the Light take you as its own.

So you push yourself, and burn away your weakness, like shedding snakeskin, and you put on the show of a lifetime. Light and Sound to match the end of the world, enough to shatter your Batons, but you don’t care; your fingers will guide the Beat.

But still it is not enough; they turn aside your Light and Sound, turn it aside and strike back as one.

So be it. You are the Bard, and you will pay any price. You will make them bow.

And so, you free yourself of the last of your weakness, your humanity. You give yourself to the Beat, and let the Rhythm use you to the fullest.

And for a moment, you become a true one-man rave, an epileptic show of strobe lights and bass noise, chaos with a beat, untamable and calamitous. Your fingers flash and suddenly become ruinous noise, your mouth opens and utters devastating luminosities, your flesh and blood gives way to pure, tumultuous, intense brightness, and for a moment, Derse glows as bright as a sun, pulsing through the Medium and illuminating the farthest reaches of the Game with your unbridled might. For a moment, Sburb feels the apocalyptic light and noise of the Bard, unleashed.

You are the Bard of Light, meant to be one with the Rhythm, meant to be used by the Light to destroy all that stand before you, and meant to love every second of it. And this way, your friends will have no obstacles before them.

The Light overwhelms you at last, but in your last fleeting moments of vision, you see the King and Queen bo­­w before you.


	103. The Witch of Light

You have a secret.

If there was one single phrase that your friends would describe you with, you think it would be that one. _You have a secret_. You’ve made it your image; you are a mystery, an enigma, a puzzle that they might try to solve, but one with an answer that would elude their every fumbling attempt at finding them.

The naiveté, the pure innocent ignorance of your circle of friends, is quite adorable.

Your greatest mystery, the one that truly baffles them, is your knowledge. You have a way of knowing things that should not be known, of coming to correct conclusions using the flimsiest of clues, of making predictions that come true with a startling degree of accuracy. You know things.

And you know these things because of your secret.

In the Game, when you all learned of the intricate rules and systems of the Classes, the others assumed you would be the Seer. Imagine their surprise.

You weren’t. Not in the slightest. You were not meant for the Seer, not meant to be the oracle, the prophet. You are the Witch, the manipulator, the controller, and that is because you have a Secret.

And your secret is simple; you know the truth.

Flip a coin. Call it. Heads or Tails? There’s a fifty percent chance that it will be one, and not the other. But what decides the choice?

Clearly, the layman would say that it was a matter of Chance, a random event that couldn’t be predicted.

But you know the truth. The truth is that the choice is decided by a thousand disparate factors; the technique of the flip, the direction of wind, the atmospheric pressure, the weight and balance of the coin, the skill of the catch, the force of gravity, and a thousand other forces. The choice comes from the logical process of scientific principles all coming together to decide a simple, single question; Heads, or Tails?

It is not random.

This is your Secret. This is your Truth.

There is no such thing as Luck.

Follow the factors, find the variables, and follow the process, and every random action can be predicted to its logical end. All it takes is the sort of mind that can see every one of those factors, see them and account for them. All it takes is a mind like yours.

And so, you are not the Seer, meant to simply witness the future through the guiding of your Aspect. You are the Witch, and your purpose is to Control.

And now, as the Witch, you have been granted the ability to control what you previously could only see; the Factors. The Variables. The Process.

“ _Luck”_.

How else is it that you can so easily stride your way through a battlefield, without a single touch of creature’s claw or monster’s bite reaching you? It isn’t random chance that forces them to miss, to stumble and grasp at air. It is the subtle manipulation of forces, of air pressure and the force of gravity on their bones, of the stability of the soil beneath their feet and the complex biology of the blood running through their veins, of the neurological processes in what passes for their ‘brains’ and the thousand tiny unconscious choices they make because of it. It is the control of a thousand disparate variables that lead to one simple, inevitable conclusion.

You are untouchable.

You are unstoppable.

You are unbeatable.

It’s simple logic, after all.

It is with this in mind that you make your decision; you are going to break the Game.

Why? Simple. You are not going to be a factor in the equation. You will not be a variable that Sburb has already calculated and accounted for, a cog in the great machine. You will not be used.

You have already set off the events that will result in the destruction of your friend’s Land. The Forge is a powerful tool, but with a few vectors and variables slightly modified, it is a powerful weapon, as well. Your Space player will be unable to make the Genesis Frog, but you had never intended to follow through with the creation of it in the first place. You will not be used.

You spirited away the Black King early in the Game; an exile caused by seemingly random circumstance and an unlucky stroke of fate. Without the King, the Derse offensive is nearly halted in its tracks. You start to put other pieces into play, to see the war between Derse and Prospit to an end unlike the one the Game intends. You will not be used.

You destroy the dreamselves yourself. Every last one of them. The God Tiers are but another tool of the Game, meant to bind the Players with strict rules and tie them further to the machine, while giving them the illusion of freedom. But you will set them free.

You. Will. Not. Be. Used.

And if you do not wish to see the end of the Game, not the way that Sburb wishes to see it, then what do you want? What are your actions meant to accomplish?

Simple. You are the Witch, and as such you are meant to control the board, to wield the infinitely vast variables and factors that define chance and luck and use them to win the Game. You mean to change the script.

Change it to what, it might be asked?

Well.

That’s a secret.


	104. The $#%^# of (*&)^%@

The $#%# of *&^*^@

There's nothing quite like playing a broken Game. It's just so... futile. Every step is stymied by errors, plagued by glitches, accosted by bugs. You have been practically molested by failures in the Game's code, and not in the fun way.

Hilariously, in the Game, those failures are literal, physical things, represented by the most bugged out monsters you've seen in a game before. The first time you saw an Imp's hand clip into a wall and get stuck there it was the funniest thing you'd ever seen. By the hundredth time, _it still was_.

Too bad they're fucking impossible to kill, right? Most everything glances off of them in a cloud of sparky runtime errors and the occasional wall of blue-screen-of-death, which makes the killing of things very, very difficult.

It is very fortunate that you have your Class to save you though; for you are the Nonsense of Gibberish! Hashtag sarcasm. Yeah, they fucked that one up, too. You are apparently the Herp of Derp, the Jack of Shit, the Yabba of DabbaDo. On the one hand, it does mean you're nearly as glitched up as your enemies are, hard to hit and harder to damage, but that doesn't help things when you find yourself falling through the world right out the other end, or trying to hit something and healing it instead, or making the Consorts hostile because they somehow interpreted 'yo' into 'you're mother was a hedgehog lover'.

That last one might just be the stupidity of Consorts, though, you aren't sure.

And that doesn't even take into account that time you tried to alchemize your own gear and somehow repainted the entirety of your world in _purple snow._

Really, there are glitches and then there's plain _nonsense_.

You swear, when you find the Page, you are going to kick him in the nads so hard, he'll start pissing 404s.

So here you are, trudging through violet precipitation, when you see the sort of sight that, mere days ago, would have left you agog in a sort of awe-filled confusion, but nowadays simply leaves you performing a x1 Facepalm Combo; a Lich, mighty and strong, standing in place doing something that looks like a rubbery dance.

Specifically, it looks like it's legs are trying to walk away in every direction, while it's torso stays sternly, stoically still. You'd say that it had an abnormally angry look on its skeletal face, but Liches always look like that. A small pile of lavender has built up on the top of its head, though; apparently it's been dancing there for awhile.

Normally, you'd either run away, because there's no point trying to kill a glitched up thing that can't die, but today you think you've had enough. So you go forward and stick out your tongue at it, because Liches are jerks.

A lavender snowflake falls lightly on your tongue. Ew. The snow tastes like... is that ketchup?

Disgusting.

The Lich offers you no opinion on the taste of the purple snow, though whether that's because it's wise enough not to try it, or simply incapable of it, you have no way of knowing. So you dance past his wildly gyrating legs, and give him a solid smack, because he's a stupid glitched up monster and you've had a bad day. Won't hurt him, but hey, it's cathartic.

He instantly bursts into Grist like a pinata with a cherry bomb inside, bathing you in piles of random Gusher shapes full of static and color.

And then something lands on your head that _isn't_ snow.

It looks kind of like a tablet pen. There are weird little shiny bits on it, and a button on the side, and it apparently has a name.

_The Debugger._

With no small amount of curiosity, you point it at a piece of Grist, one of the useless broken ones full of glitchy static, and press the button.

With a little _bworp_ , the Grist turns from a glitchy piece of useless shit to... a piece of normal, unbugged, unglitched, average Grist.

You... you may have found something pretty useful.

You point it at a rock that looks like it loaded a wood texture when it materialized, and push the button. _Vwomp_. Suddenly it just looks like a rock. A perfectly normal, average rock.

And with a slowly building grin, you realize you may have just hit the jackpot.

With this sudden turnaround in fortune, your path has become much, much easier. You stroll through your Land, debugging monsters out of their glitch-based immortality and killing them with impunity, laughing while suddenly-normal Imps try to hit you and fail, due to your still-present pseudo-shield that is your error-filled self. Quests, previously impossible to complete due to whacked out meaninglessness are suddenly quite trivial. The world, nay, the universe is yours to command back into mundane banality!

The world is your bug-free oyster.

You are the Herpa of Baderpa, the Glitch of Errors, the $#%^ of &**)#@. You're a guy with a bit of good luck and a bit of bad luck, and you'll be damned if you aren't going to make the most of it.

And, in time, you may yet forgive the Page for throwing that Missingno picture into his goddamned Sprite.


	105. The Rogue of Light

The blackness spreads, as the dark finally claims you, but you are unafraid.

There was a time, long ago, before Sburb, before fiery rocks and universe frogs, when you dreamed of a planet colored an imperial violet, and in doing so, were freed from the dangers and trials of reality. After filling out your daily entry in your little black diary, you would shut off your lights, close your door, and pull the curtains tightly shut. You would block out the harsh glare of fluorescent bulbs, the bright shine of the moon, the soft glow of stars, even the tiniest red lights of your clock, and you would leave nothing but the quiet dark. You would curl up tightly, wrapping yourself in your pink Squiddles blanket, and when there was nothing but gentle darkness and calming warmth, you would fall into another, more amazing world.

You dreamed of a world more real than your own, a world ruled by Fate and Luck and the gentle voices of the Dark, who had been in your dreams for as long as you could remember. You dreamed of a Game, of labyrinthine Rules and unfathomable Danger, strange and wonderful in its design and awesome in its glory. You dreamed of a Path, a Path you would follow to the grand and wonderful Reward that lay at the end of it all, a Path fraught with challenges and obstacles and a great Enemy that would stand in your way. You dreamed, and through this all you found _purpose_.

Such a simple, sweet word.

You recognized, as few others did, how flimsy the world really was, how fragile it stood, and how easily it could come tumbling down, a house of cards toppled by an errant breath. You anticipated that tumultuous end. You feared it, as well, but you knew what happened after the end, and that made the fear a small and quiet thing.

And in the end, it was no breath of air that was responsible, but a whirlwind of fire and stone that drowned the world in chaos, a cataclysmic end sowed by good-intentioned hands. Soon, you were alone, in a broken house, on a twisted Land, in the Game you had dreamed of for so long.

But you did not have to be alone for long. You found your way to Derse, and the Dark was there, waiting, watching, _preparing_. The Dark was there, and it was by its hands that you were saved.

The Dark, which had cradled you so, now spoke to you in the shadows of Derse, that wonderful, violet, violent place.

It spoke of Rewards. It spoke of Purpose. It spoke of a Plan.

It spoke of an Enemy, who must be defeated.

It spoke of the Game, and how it would be Won.

And so, you did what they asked. You feared for the Prize you had all suffered so much for, and so you did what you had to do. A Rogue must play a subtle game, and so your actions were kept secret and silent. It wasn't to hide your actions from the other Players; you only meant to reduce the possibility of your actions being discovered by the Enemy, and the Dark told you that the Enemy had many ways of finding what it wished to know. You had to play a quiet Game, a Game within the Game, a setting up of pieces and traps and situations, a placement of Players and Royals and Pawns, a manipulation of Derse and Prospit and Skaia, all meant to combat the workings of the Enemy who would show himself before the End.

You would not allow the Enemy to win the Prize you had been waiting all your life for. 

And so the Game progresses; Players level echeladders, Planets are slowly changed by Quests, the War proceeds between Derse and Prospit, Skaia continues to bloom, and all the while you work in secret, preparing the board for the Enemy who is to come. You record your twisting, turning Plan in a small, black book, a Journal to keep your thoughts in place.

The Game progresses, and as it does, you begin to feel a new sort of fear.

The Enemy will come, the Dark proclaims, and you have trusted it for so long, for the many weeks you have been in Sburb and the years that you have dreamed, that it frightens you to think of the doubt that begins to coil in your heart. Because the Enemy has not yet come, and the End looms.

And if there is no Enemy, what was the point? Of the secrecy and plans and everything you hid from the friends who have been your family for so long?

So you confront the Dark, and demand an explanation. You stand on the highest tower of Derse’s moon, the one in which your dreamself slept before it awoke, and you know Derse is as far away from Skaia as it will ever be, and you demand to know if the Enemy will come. You demand the answer to why. And with one last Whisper, they give it to you.

With one last Whisper, the Dark engulfs you, and your body stops being your own. Your mind plunges into Darkness, and you do not dream.

And when you awake, there is only one Player left unscathed.

The bodies of those poor, innocent souls lie around you. The Players you called friends, comrades, family. Your hands are covered in blood, and something like slick oil. None of them are moving. None of them are breathing.

The Time Player stands before you, and he has a knife in his hands. He has buried it in your chest. He's weeping, gasping, both at once, and he won't stop shaking. And at the sight of his tears, you understand. Only one Player remains unscathed, and it is not you. You bleed black ink, you are covered in the blood of others, and you do not remember, but you do not _need_ to.

There was always going to be an Enemy. It is a constant, an unavoidable Truth. In this poor, doomed timeline, it was you.

But in a few moments, the Hero of Time will return to the past, and try to change the future. And when he does, he will find his every step stymied by an insidious, secretive foe, one with a Plan to stop the Enemy from destroying all she holds dear. In another timeline, the Rogue of Light will be faced with the Enemy she has been guided to fight for her entire life.

In another lifetime, the Rogue will be a Pawn, a slave to another’s goals,and in doing so, will fail to find her own path. She will forever be the true Enemy of the Game, and will never be the wiser for it.

So, in your final moments, you give the poor, grieving soul in front of you a simple, black Journal. A record of everything you have done. A map, to give him another path to follow. A better path.

A Path you will never take, but one that could never have been taken, without you.

You are the Rogue, and here is the ultimate expression of your Quest; to take the wayward path, and in doing so, illuminate the road that others will follow.

You will be the Light in the malevolent Dark.

He takes your Journal, and he disappears, taking the key to your salvation with him.

The Timeline slowly comes apart, in the black mist of Doom.

And in your final moments, it is dark, and warm, and peaceful.


	106. The Thief of Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, Ms. Serket! I agonized over whether to make her chapter 88 (somehow), or make her the 8th class of the 8th Aspect. As you can see, I chose the latter. I also went on what I believe to be a different route for her character, and focused on something I don't see come up as often about our beloved Spidergal. Let me know what you think.
> 
> Also, look two chapters back (the Gibberish of Nonsense, just before the Rogue) in the comments, and you'll see a bunch of thoughts on the Class Quests (both as they've been so far, and what I'd change if I started over). OBVOS asked, and I decided to elaborate, as I love to do. Go ahead and chime in if you have any opinions/thoughts/replies/outraged screams to throw in there. 
> 
> Now, enjoy the Thief!(!!!!!!!)

Wow, that...

That is a _lot_ of blood.

Jeez.

The pain you are in is intense. Kind of awe-inspiring, really. You didn't know the Maid had it in her, but there you go. Sometimes you find a spine in the strangest of places.

And sometimes you spend days, months, _sweeps_ trying to force a spine into someone's back, and it _never fucking works_. Damn him. Damn.

This really hurts. The last time you'd felt this much pain, an important artifact had exploded in your hands. It had taken your arm and your eye with it (and you still hated the emptiness, in your vision and in your mind, because you had loved your Vision Eightfold; losing it was heartbreaking, all on its own).

Even then, you'd had the strength of will to stand, to enact your Revenge. The Seer tried to put you down, tried and failed. She took your eye, so you took two, one for the insult and one to break even. You'd been strong, then.

You hadn't always believed it, but you'd been strong.

Something is different, this time. The Maid had beaten you down, and left you bleeding, broken, and dying. You think she might have broken something in your spine. You don't think you can feel your legs.

The Page might have found that funny, if he had any sort of iron in him in the fucking slightest.

But, broken spine or not, there's still something different, this time. The last time, you'd done everything you needed to do to make it right. To even the score. Now...

You've always been able to control the minds of those weaker than you. And since that included basically every other troll in existence, that was a pretty broad category. You know you could have made the Page do what you wanted him to do. You went halfway, though. You chickened out.

You... wanted him to make one, simple little choice. He'd already gotten you there, after all. Gotten your dying ass to the Quest Cocoon, placed you on the bed, and...

And stood there, basically. Like a useless damned wiggler.

The long and short of it is, you need to die. Desperately. This hurts, after all, and the sooner you die, the sooner you can Rise. And all you needed him to do was _fucking kill you_. He should have been glad to! He should have wanted it more than anything else in the whole world! It should have gladdened his _heart_ to see you dead by his own hands.

Or, at the very least, he should have had the heart to put you out of your misery.

This... this really, really hurts.

Is it so much to ask? To be allowed to die, without suffering so much for it?

For once in your life, could things go the way you want them to?

You're so tired. And, whether you want to admit it or not, you are afraid. You're... not sure, exactly, whether or not the whole God Tier thing is even true. You might not be dying to rise to a higher level of existence. You might just be... dying. Alone. Broken. Hated.

Unfulfilled.

And it frightens you, more than you've ever been frightened before.

When you lost your hand, your eye, and your friend, you did what you had to do. Vengeance demanded as much. You didn't have time to be afraid. You didn't have time to die. Too much to do. But what the Maid did to you this time evened the score. It was a balancing of scales, and you understand that better than the Seer ever thought you did. And now, you have all the time in the world to think. To fear.

To bleed, and die, and curse the spinelessness of Pages.

Or maybe you'll just... not do much of anything. Just drift.

Maybe you'll die faster if you just try to let go. But you aren't sure that's what you want to do.

It's the fear, you begin to realize. The fear is doing its job; trying to keep you alive. You need to die, but you're afraid it won't be the end, and it is keeping you in _agony_. If trolls are good at one thing, it's not dying. They're a hardy breed.

It hurts.

You wish, so much, that the Page would have just done it. That he would have had, if nothing else, the simple kindness in him. To end it.

You could have made him do it. Just grabbed his puny little mind and done it. But... it wouldn't have been right. If he was going to do it, he had to do it himself. 

He had to do it of his own free will, or not at all.

So, not at all, in the end.

This is... a lot of blood. There is a symbol you can see, on the ground near you, at the corner of your eye. A sun. Silly little thing, isn't it. But it makes you think.

You've never been lucky, or fortunate. The world stacked its deck against you, and it has taken everything you have to keep on top. Or... you thought you were on top. Maybe you never were. Maybe you've never been as good as you thought you were. Maybe.

There is one truth before you; you are going to die. And after that, the Universe gets to flip a coin. Heads, you Rise, and become a God, because everything you've been told is true. Tails, you die, and stay dead forevermore, because you were lied to. For a split second, after your inevitable death, you'll be like Troll-Schrodinger's famous purrbeast; both alive and subjugglated at the same time, until observed.

Until a Light is shined upon you, revealing your fate.

Thieves are meant to Take, and in Taking, Win. You have... plans, for after your Rise. You have hopes, hopes that the Game will really, truly give you the power you want, the power you _need_ in order to do what you have to do.

You have to be willing to die, though, in order to see if you will fulfill your Role. You have to die.

You want to fulfill your Destiny. And soon, if all goes well, you will. You will be a God among Trolls, unique amongst your kind, filled with Power, filled with Purpose, and able to show the entire Universe just how much it shot itself in the foot, giving this all to you.

But that is in the future. Maybe here, and now, you can fulfill your Destiny a different way. Maybe there's a thousand ways to fulfill your Role. Maybe your Title means many things.

Maybe today, you can be the Thief of Light by Taking a Chance.

The sight of the symbol of your Aspect helps you make your decision.

With one, last breath, you roll the dice of Fate, and let Luck do what it will.

And when you Rise, you do so surrounded 8y 8eams of glorious Light.


	107. The Waste of Flow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, time for something completely different. A Title request for AnimeArtista! Please note that, although the class/aspect come from the always-excellent Sburb FAQ, it doesn't use the FAQs definition of Flow, due to rabid-plot-bunny attack. Enjoy, Artista!

There exists, somewhere in the deep, star-studded darkness, a strange and storied place, a plane which acts as the Medium for a thousand, thousand tales. And at the center of this wonderful, mysterious place, there is a planet that is a star that is a cradle, where a Riddle waits to be answered, and a Universe waits to be born. And from this place, this place of limitless potential, flows limitless power, power in all its varied, magnificent forms. Thousands of forms. Thousands of Titles. Thousands of Aspects through which the potential of this place is fragmented and split, as light scatters through a prism.

This wonderful, terrible place, which marks those it chooses with its power, can not be said to have ever made a mistake. This wonderful, terrible place, the mechanism by which Universes are birthed, was not created with the _ability_ to make mistakes. It does not understand the concept. What omnipotent hand would create such a machine that could not complete its purpose? What omnipotent word would form such a riddle that could not be answered? This, you believe, without doubt, despite all that has occurred to you.

You have been challenged on many, many things, in the short span of your life. Your mind, sometimes, feels as fragile as porcelain, for it seems that the moment you begin to believe that you _understand_ something, that understanding is undermined by some new, terrible truth. Sometimes, you believe your mind is as the proverbial house built upon the sands, and the universe seems to delight in crashing waves upon your proverbial shore. But there is one thing that not even the mightiest of metaphorical tsunamis could shake. One truth you hold dear, when others would have let it fall by the wayside so long before. There is a _plan_. This you believe. And though the madness and chaos of this Game, between its inanities and its intricacies, would imply that there is no such thing as fate, that all is but the dashing around of desperate beings trying to put together something that cannot be fixed, you believe that even in the midst of all of this, it is meant for something. Faith. It holds you up, even now.

The cradle of potential that is Skaia chooses the power it grants to its Players with all the care of a monk drawing patterns in the sand of his garden. Every line means something. Every stone has a purpose. Separately, each seems worthless. But together, seen as a whole, it all has wondrous meaning.

This you believe.

And so, you must believe that the terrible, dreadful power that is yours, must have purpose.

You are the Waste of Flow. And, like many titles, it does not means what you would think it means. The demesne of Heart is not merely those tender qualities of love, friendship, and kindness. It is also the Aspect that deals with the Soul, in all its light and darkness. Light means more than just the imprint of photons upon the eye's lenses; it is the Aspect of Luck and Fortune, the chaos inherent to order, and the revelation of Knowledge and Truth. And it is just so, with the Aspect of Flow.

Control over Flow, is control over the powers of Skaia, in its many forms.

You are not sure why it means such. Perhaps it references the might of the roaring river, which could certainly be said to be powerful in a physical sense. Perhaps it is linked the the flow of blood through the veins, that essence that is the basis of life, in the biological sense, and could be said to be powerful in the metaphorical sense. Perhaps, to other Players of the same Aspect, it means something entirely different, something more elemental or metaphorical, and it is only you that carries this one, specific meaning. Perhaps it is an Aspect unique to you, in all the multiverse.

Perhaps it is none of these.

But this you know; there are few Players, in the vast multiverse, who can do such as you.

You are not sure why you were granted this Title. But you have faith that there _is_ a 'why'. You believe there is a reason for the calamity that follows you, uncontrollable and undeniable. You believe there is a reason that, near you, the powers of Skaia grow in power a hundred-fold, and at the same time, rage out of the control of even the most iron-willed of Players. There must be a reason that to be near you is to become death and chaos incarnate.

To see the blackness of Rage bleed, uncontrollably, into the very air, causing the elements themselves to turn against themselves, for stone to attack the air and water to drown life. To see the rules of Space bend in every way that can be bent, to watch Euclidean geometry and the laws of thermodynamics become broken, alien, and unwatchable, as the very earth is transformed into something that blinds the mind and shatters the senses. To see the growth of Life become growth unchecked, growth unfettered by energy, entropy, or death, to see the terrors of what Life could become without limits, laws, or even the base ethics of Nature, elephantine, gargantuan, eldritch. These are the definitions of horror, and such is the sights you saw as your aura inevitably worked its control over the powers of your fellow Players.

You are fortunate, in some ways. The curse that proximity to you lays upon your fellow Players weakens and disappears if you are not present. Their control reasserts itself, when not actively affected by your aura. The world rights itself, though not unscathed. And you are fortunate that, for all of its absurdities and insanities, the Game understands that its Players are meant to die, and grants them that second chance at life. All you have to do, to fix it, is leave.

So you leave, in order to prevent any further death by your power's hands. You find an asteroid, far removed from the Lands of the Players, far removed from the Kingdoms of Derse and Prospit, far removed from Skaia, that well of limitless potential that made you what you are. You find a laboratory, there, a place full of machines and computers, vats and transporters, and a hundred strange rooms. You find a place full of computer screens, a place that lets you view the events of the Session you have removed yourself from. And you watch. You watch your Session slowly doom itself, as failure after failure and trial after trial begins stripping away the possibilities of success. You keep in touch with your Players, and find them beginning to lose all hope. They begin to believe that it is all meaningless. They begin to believe they are doomed. But you have faith; faith that somehow, your power is the key.

You have to believe that the meaning behind your power will become, in time, clear.

Others find you. Not physically, but textually; a strange group, somehow alien in subtle ways, with strange quirks of speech and stranger quirks of personality. Players of another Session, holders of their own destinies and mysteries.

They can be full of wrath, but full of some strange kindness, as well. They can be cruel, yet occasionally show a sort of passionate mercy. They can be as indescribably stupid as all teenagers can be, and all the same, they can be intelligent and wise. And they appear to be doomed to fail, just as others would say of your Session. They have reached what appears to be the end of their Story, in a parallel that cleaves so closely to your own Story, so very much like yours.

And in one, simple way, they are very much like the friends you have hidden yourself away from; they believe all is hopeless.

But that is not what you believe. You believe there is a purpose in this, a path that is to be followed. And it is here, with these strange children, that it all changes. Once, you played a game with your friends, and the world came to an end. And ever since the moment you placed that disc in your computer, you have searched for the sign that you believe is waiting for you.

You find it in the green-colored text of a strange, alien girl, who tells you a story you have become familiar with.

Their Titles are many and powerful, except, seemingly, for one. A girl, the same age as you, who appears to have been cursed by the Title she was granted. A girl, around whom all powers become simpler, easier to control, but at the same time, wither into powerless nothingness. Around her, all of Skaia's powers become worthless, weak, and frail. Calamity follows her, as powers are stripped from those who so desperately need them, and in the wake of the failure her presence causes, she is shunned by the others. She has hidden herself away, in a laboratory on an asteroid, far removed from Lands and Kingdoms and Skaia itself. She is waiting for a sign.

She is the Grace of Flow.

And now, you see the path.

You do not know how. You do not know when. But somehow, someday, you are going to bridge the Sessions, to combine the stories of Human and Troll, and it will be the two of you that will give the Players the tools they need to answer the Ultimate Riddle, and birth the Universe Skaia was always meant to create. In you, they will find Power, and in her, they will find Control, and together, your Power will be whole.

Between the two of you, the power of Skaia will continue to Flow, strong and sure, in all who follow you.

You are the Waste of Flow. Though you did not know it, you have spent your life seeking the Grace of Flow.

And now that you have, you have much to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed that slightly different Title. I sure did! I did try and think of something more along the lines of the Sburb FAQ version of Flow (which is Fire, I guess? Actually, it makes sense when paired with Rhyme as Ice (due to Rime puns, yay)). Couldn't think of anything there, so I tried a more standard Water theme, still nothing. So when this idea popped up, I went at it. I think it went well.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Game And Those Who Play- Grimdark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/917956) by [setsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/setsun/pseuds/setsun)
  * [The Bard of Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2481521) by [HowlingArmadillo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowlingArmadillo/pseuds/HowlingArmadillo)
  * [Those Who Played, And Will Play Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3248969) by [boxofbreath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofbreath/pseuds/boxofbreath)




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